LABOR TURNOVER, 
 LOYALTY AND OUTPUT 
 
% Qraw-3/dl Book (a 7m 
 
 PUBLISHERS OF BOOKS F O R_> 
 
 Coal Age * Electric Railway Journal 
 Electrical \Xforld v Engineering. News -Record 
 American Machinist v The Contractor 
 Engineering 8 Mining Journal ^ Power 
 Metallurgical 6 Chemical Engineering 
 Electrical Merchandising 
 
LABOR TURNOVER, 
 LOYALTY AND OUTPUT 
 
 A CONSIDERATION OF THE TREND OF THE TIMES AS 
 
 SHOWN BY THE RESULTS OF WAR ACTIVITIES 
 
 IN THE MACHINE SHOPS AND ELSEWHERE 
 
 BY 
 
 FRED H. COLVIN 
 
 ASSOCIATE EDITOR American Machinist; MEMBER AMERICAN SOCIETY 
 OP MECHANICAL ENGINEERS AND FRANKLIN INSTITUTE; AUTHOR 
 OF "AMERICAN MACHINISTS' HANDBOOK," "AMERICAN MA- 
 CHINIST GRINDING BOOK," "MACHINE SHOP CALCULA- 
 TIONS," "MACHINE SHOP ARITHMETIC," "HILL 
 
 KINK BOOKS," ETC., ETC. 
 
 FIRST EDITION 
 
 McGRAW-HILL BOOK COMPANY, INC. 
 239 WEST 39TH STREET. NEW YORK 
 
 LONDON: HILL PUBLISHING CO., Lro. 
 6 & 8 BOUVERIE ST., E. C. 
 
 1919 
 
y 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY THE 
 MCGRAW-HILL BOOK COMPANY, INC. 
 
 THB MAPLE PRESS Y O K 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 The stress of war gave us little time to note the 
 many changes which have taken place in the 
 industries of the country. Now that it is over 
 we are face to face with new problems and those 
 who have not ket pace with the trend toward 
 greater democracy in industry, are startled to 
 find the changing conditions. But while this 
 is perhaps the greatest problem, there are many 
 others all of which bear on production and on 
 future prosperity. 
 
 The demands of war work emphasized the need 
 for a greater supply of trained mechanics of various 
 kinds and showed very clearly the shortsighted- 
 ness which had overlooked the fact that we were 
 not training nearly enough men for the needs 
 of industry. This shortage of trained men has 
 had much to do with the great advance in wages, 
 and with them, the cost of everyday commodities. 
 
 Spasmodic efforts have been made to create 
 a supply of mechanics almost over-night, and 
 splendid results have been accomplished by inten- 
 sive training under qualified instructors in some 
 places. In others the thin veneer of instruction 
 
 394781 
 
vi FOREWORD 
 
 has been of little consequence. It has shown 
 very clearly however that intensive training can 
 lay a foundation from which we can secure me- 
 chanics of various kinds in a very short time, 
 and that such schools are of great value to the 
 industry and to the community. 
 
 This training, however, especially that which 
 only taught one operation, has not had the desired 
 effect on reducing labor turnover. Nor is the 
 cause of changing from one factory to another 
 always the result of higher wages. Sheer mo- 
 notony and the desire to do something different 
 has much to do with it, and for the most part 
 nothing has been done to meet this phase of the 
 problem, if indeed it is generally recognized. 
 
 This little book endeavors to point out some of 
 the methods by which men and women may be 
 induced to take an interest in then- work, these 
 being based to a considerable extent upon the 
 successful experience of Robert B. Wolf in his 
 handling of paper and pulp mills under various 
 conditions. This for the most part, has a direct 
 bearing in making them better workers by adding 
 to their fund of knowledge about their work and 
 the industry in general. It can also be made to 
 add to their value as citizens, which is going to 
 be an even more important item in the future 
 than in the past. 
 
FOREWORD vii 
 
 The book also takes up some of the broader 
 problems which are being presented and which 
 are bound to confront us in increasing numbers, 
 the problems of shop government and the rela- 
 tions between the employer and his employees. 
 For, just as many small autocratic governments 
 are crumbling in Europe, so many of our most fore- 
 sighted men, both manufacturers and economists, 
 believe that similar changes are bound to occur 
 in industry. The manufacturers who attended 
 the Babson Conference on Co-operation were un- 
 animous in the belief that arbitrary methods of 
 shop management were not only unjust but un- 
 wise, and that the workers should have a voice in 
 all matters that affected their welfare in the shop 
 as well as out. 
 
 The changes wrought by the war have not 
 been lost on the workers in this country and the 
 desire for a voice in shop government is more 
 deeply rooted than many realize. Those who 
 have studied the question most carefully believe 
 that safety lies in meeting the desire half way, 
 or more. They believe that it is necessary for 
 progressive manufacturers to co-operate with the 
 sane element of the labor movement in order to 
 prevent a clash between the radical element of 
 labor and the reactionary employer, who is the 
 autocrat of his shop just as the Czar was the auto- 
 
viii FOREWORD 
 
 crat of all the Russians. Such clashes are to be 
 deplored from every point of view. 
 
 I am indebted to James Hartness, a highly 
 successful manufacturer, for the inspiration re- 
 ceived from his book, "The Human Element in 
 Works Management." He deserves especial 
 credit for being one of the pioneers in the move- 
 ment for a better understanding of the human 
 side of the problems of the machine shop. 
 
 In the belief that the good of the country, as 
 well as of the industries demand a careful consid- 
 eration of these problems and that many changes 
 are before us, I have endeavored to present some 
 of the problems and to suggest possible solutions 
 for some of them. No one today is wise enough 
 to outline the precise way in which these problems 
 will be solved. But no citizen who loves his 
 country and his fellow man can shut his eyes to 
 the impending changes or strive to prevent what 
 the great majority deem progress. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 FOREWORD v 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 LACK OP INTEREST AND LABOR TURNOVER 1 
 
 The Lack of Interest Breaking up the Apprentice 
 System Reviving Interest in the Work. 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 BUILDING AN ORGANIZATION 10 
 
 Being Misunderstood Arousing Interest Explaining 
 the Product The Bulletin Board Progress Reports. 
 
 CHAPTER III!; 
 
 FORGETTING THE HUMAN ELEMENT 22 
 
 Prevent Erroneous Information The Interest of 
 Working for Yourself How the Attitude of Mind 
 Affects Work Autocracy Out-of-date Overhead 
 Cost not Appreciated Responsibility has Good Effect 
 Democracy in Making Pipes Working out a 
 Theory in Shop Management Labor Turnover Keeps 
 Down both Payroll and Production How the White 
 Motor Company does It A Cooperative Store. 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 SECURING INTEREST BY INSTRUCTION 44 
 
 Avoid Over-speeding Encourage Men to Learn of 
 
 Their Work Confiscating Inventions Demoralizing 
 
 The Snagging Grinder Look for Interest in All Oper- 
 
 ix 
 
x CONTENTS 
 
 PAOB 
 
 ations The Heat Treating Room Value of Examples 
 of Work Making the Man more Valuable The 
 Engine Lathe. 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 INSTRUCTION IN THE SHOP 61 
 
 The Packard Training School The Standard .Course 
 Learning to Measure Using the Micrometer A 
 Combination Measuring Lesson Women hi Garage 
 Work An Intensive Course in Fundamentals A 
 Class of Forty The Points to be Remembered Some 
 Visible Proofs of Success Course Gives Funda- 
 mentals. 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 NON-FlNANCIAL INCENTIVES 92 
 
 Extracts from Paper by R. B. Wolff. 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 THE EMPLOYMENT MANAGER 108 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 LATEST IDEAS OP LEADING MEN 117 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 COLLECTIVE BARGAINING 137 
 
 Prefers to Deal with Unions Decreasing Spoiled 
 Work The Time has Come for Cooperation Build- 
 ing up a Loyal Organization The Community Must 
 be Considered The Suggested Plan for Profit Sharing 
 The Square Deal will Win. 
 
LABOR TURNOVER, 
 LOYALTY AND OUTPUT 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 LACK OF INTEREST AND LABOR 
 TURNOVER 
 
 We have learned much during the past few 
 years about the expense of labor turnover and 
 its effect on the cost of production. It has 
 been shown in figures how the actual cost of 
 hiring and firing - a man may run from $20 to 
 $2000 depending on the kind of a man and the 
 importance of the job, and we have discussed 
 many ways of reducing this labor turnover. 
 
 The situation was very acute in certain centers, 
 such as Detroit, where along in 1912 and 1913, 
 some of the plants had a turnover of 600 percent 
 a year. In other words the average length of 
 time which an employee staid on one job was 
 two months, or to put it still differently, the 
 whole force changed on the average of six times 
 a year. A large percentage of the labor was 
 
 i 
 
2 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 unskilled as well as being foreign born, jobs were 
 easy to get, and for various reasons men shifted 
 from factory to factory. 
 
 Then came the Ford bonus or profit-sharing 
 scheme which immediately made it a decided 
 object not to leave the Ford plant, and the 
 turnover was checked in this plant to a consider- 
 able extent. Some of the conditions of the bonus 
 as at first put into practice, were somewhat in- 
 quisitorial, some of which was probably necessary 
 in view of certain conditions which had to be met 
 and overcome. For it must be remembered that 
 the principal object in Mr. Ford's mind was to 
 make every man have a home of his own, free 
 from boarders or other outside influence, and to 
 give every child a fair chance at an education. 
 The methods have been greatly modified since 
 the inception of the plan and many of the fea- 
 tures to which some objected, no longer exist. 
 The fact remained however that turnover was 
 very materially reduced and, as a consequence, 
 production increased accordingly. 
 
 There can be no question as to the effect of a 
 substantial bonus or a higher wage than the 
 average, in maintaining a constant working 
 force. But it is not always possible for a small 
 concern, or a large one either for that matter, 
 to pay a higher rate than the rest of the com- 
 
LACK OF INTEREST AND LABOR TURNOVER 3 
 
 munity. And unless this is done, some other 
 means must be found to make it an object for 
 men to stay in one shop instead of wandering 
 from place to place, as has become the habit in 
 some localities. 
 
 But reducing turnover does not necessarily 
 mean that you are getting the greatest output 
 from the plant. For, even though there are no 
 machines idle, it takes no expert in scientific 
 management to know that they are not all 
 running as efficiently as they might. 
 
 The scientific management expert immediately 
 wants to introduce his particular system, which 
 in too many cases consists of a series of printed 
 forms for recording what has been done, instead 
 of suggesting a rational method by which the 
 output can be increased without speeding up or 
 further antagonizing the workers. Some want 
 to study the problem in various ways, and lay 
 down fixed rules for every movement of the hand 
 or arm during the various operations. Each of 
 these has its place and can be made to secure much 
 valuable information. Unfortunately this in- 
 formation is not always used judiciously from 
 the human or individual standpoint, and the 
 result is still more antagonism. But, worse than 
 that, it tends to kill real, human interest in the 
 work. And this is a far more important factor 
 
4 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 in shop management than has been realized by 
 many. 
 
 THE LACK OF INTEREST 
 
 There are frequent complaints from shop 
 managers that men no longer take an interest in 
 their work, that "six o'clock and pay day" is the 
 main thought. Careful observers agree that this 
 complaint is true, in part at least, and that it has 
 a direct bearing on production and on all indus- 
 trial relations. 
 
 Interest in one's work makes it an inspiration 
 to better things; lack of interest turns it into a 
 drudgery, to be borne under protest, and for as 
 short a time as possible. 
 
 The desirability of securing the interest of all 
 workers in their daily tasks needs no argument. 
 It is as advantageous to the employer as to the 
 worker, for it inspires the employee to improve 
 both the quality and quantity of the product, 
 and it makes him or her a much better citizen 
 in every way. But it must be a real interest in 
 the work itself as well as in the financial returns 
 which come as a reward. 
 
 We sometimes long for the days of the old- 
 time machinist who took as much pride and 
 interest in his work as did the owner himself; 
 who did a good job because he was not satisfied 
 
LACK OF INTEREST AND LABOR TURNOVER 5 
 
 with anything less. But few of us stop to analyze 
 the reasons for the change, and seem to forget 
 that every effect has its cause. Let us look back 
 and see what some of the causes may have been. 
 The days we long for are the days of the old- 
 time apprenticeship when the boy learned to 
 run every machine in the shop; when he had a 
 great variety of work; when there were no great 
 social distinctions and no great concentrated 
 wealth, as we know it today. The shops were 
 smaller and there was a much closer contact 
 between the "boss" and his men, more chance to 
 talk over each new job and give the different men 
 a chance to express their opinion as to the best 
 way of doing it. Each man felt a much greater 
 responsibility as he could see the direct effect of 
 his work on the output of the shop as well as on 
 its reputation. 
 
 BREAKING UP THE APPRENTICE SYSTEM 
 
 Then came the beginning of the expansion 
 of the machine industry and with it the beginning 
 of the stealing of men from one shop or from 
 one locality by another. This meant an in- 
 crease of wages in nearly all such cases and this 
 resulted in offering the apprentice boys who 
 were part way through their course of instruc- 
 tion, a much higher rate than they were then 
 
6 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 receiving. The offer of much higher wages, par- 
 ticularly in view of the extremely low-wage rate 
 then paid apprentices, was too great an induce- 
 ment, and many boys jumped their contracts, 
 even though they might now be better off if 
 they had not done so. This led to the abandon- 
 ment of the practice of teaching apprentices 
 in many shops and there are now comparatively 
 few which continue their old-time apprentice- 
 ship courses. Those who do, believe it to be a 
 paying investment, but it seems safe to say that 
 the old-time apprenticeship, as an institution, 
 is gone forever. 
 
 With the abandonment of the apprentice- 
 ship system came, of necessity, the splitting of 
 the work up into operations so as to enable less 
 skilled men to handle it. This was the beginning 
 of the " lathe hand," " planer hand' 7 and " drill 
 press machinist" which are so common at the 
 present time. Added to this was the wave of 
 so-called scientific management which swept over 
 the country and which advocated the still further 
 division of the work into sub-operations so that 
 the worker was no longer a machinist in any 
 sense, but an " operator," whose sole duty was to 
 perform a very few motions which could not 
 readily be performed by the machine itself. 
 
 To make matters worse we began to talk 
 
LACK OF INTEREST AND LABOR TURNOVER 7 
 
 about " fool-proof" jigs, to advocate the center- 
 ing of all the brains of the establishment in the 
 office, to plan out beforehand every operation 
 and every movement which the worker must 
 perform. We began to separate the shop per- 
 sonnel into thinkers on the one hand and append- 
 ages to machines of various kinds on the 
 other; to take out the little remaining human 
 elements and to substitute an impersonal plan- 
 ning department, made up in too many cases 
 from young college graduates with little or no 
 shop experience. In other words we took away 
 all the interesting parts of the work and made 
 the men into attachments to machines, demand- 
 ing in many cases that they follow exact motions 
 laid down by others, in performing their daily tasks. 
 After dehumanizing the shop, so far as con- 
 sulting with the men actually on the job was 
 concerned, and making the operators into auto- 
 matons so far as possible, we found much discon- 
 tent and the lack of interest became very no- 
 ticeable. But instead of attempting to find the 
 cause, to get at the real psychological reasons 
 for the lack of interest, too many shops adopted 
 the paternal attitude and began to "do things 
 for the employees," and in many cases to do them 
 in such a patronizing way as to offset any good 
 which they might otherwise have accomplished. 
 
8 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 Much of the so-called welfare work is to be 
 highly commended, it all depends on the spirit 
 which is behind it and in the personnel of staff 
 who execute it. It can be very helpful or very 
 harmful, depending on the way in which it is 
 carried out. Anything which helps to improve 
 the health and safety of workers, either in the 
 shop or out, helps them to turn out more and 
 better product. For even where we have " fool- 
 proof" tools we find that a skilled operator can 
 usually turn out a much larger product than one 
 who is indifferent or inexperienced. 
 
 And this is what gives us a clue to a possible 
 solution of some of our difficulties. 
 
 REVIVING INTEREST IN THE WORK 
 
 The old apprenticeship system has gone never 
 to return. The subdividing of work into more 
 or less minute operations has come to stay. 
 The problem is to so humanize the relation of 
 the employee and the work as to revive so far as 
 possible the old-time interest which is now lacking 
 in too many cases. It is not only a question of 
 wages, but a question of creating a real interest 
 in the work itself.- When this is done, and it 
 can be done, the result is not only shown by a 
 contented lot of employees but by an increased 
 output and a better quality of product. 
 
LACK OF INTEREST AND LABOR TURNOVER 9 
 
 The planning department must not be an 
 autocratic institution which dictates just how 
 every worker in the shop must move and act 
 under all circumstances. It must be the clear- 
 ing house for all the ideas which may be evolved 
 in any department of the plant. And the green- 
 est laborer or the newest office boy may have 
 an idea of value. In any case they must be 
 made to feel that they are a part of the institution 
 and that no matter how large it may be or how 
 small their part, that their ideas and sugges- 
 tions will receive consideration. 
 
 But this is not all. The " suggestion box" is 
 good and should be used, but we must definitely 
 plan and study how to make each part of the work 
 of real interest to the employees. It is not an 
 easy task but is in fact, far more difficult than 
 the running of an ordinary planning department. 
 It is, however, capable of great development and 
 can be made of greater value than any other one 
 thing about the plant. The united brains of 
 the whole number of employees in the plant 
 can be of much more value than those of any 
 selected few, and the value of having every one 
 in the plant interested in his or her job, can 
 hardly be over-estimated. And we must not 
 forget that this has a direct bearing on production. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 BUILDING AN ORGANIZATION 
 
 The first step is for the man at the top to 
 decide whether he really wants to build up a 
 loyal and interested organization or not. And 
 if so, whether he is willing to pay the price. For 
 everything has its price and the more desirable it 
 is the higher the price we pay for it. But the 
 price is not likely to be in money, for such an 
 organization will be more productive than we 
 realize. 
 
 Every business man can look back to some 
 period of his life where a faithful few performed 
 wonders in productive effort. Not so much 
 because they were unusually strong or excep- 
 tionally skilled as because they were all keenly 
 interested in the work to be done and each worked 
 without a question as to whether he was doing 
 more than his share or not. And then it often 
 happened that, after a little group like this have 
 pulled the business up on to solid ground and the 
 financial tide turned, jealousies and suspicions 
 as to the proper division of the profits crept in, 
 and the production dropped at an amazing rate. 
 
 10 
 
BUILDING AN ORGANIZATION 11 
 
 The building of a loyal organization cannot be 
 done for selfish ends alone and have it be per- 
 manent and successful. The true ends always 
 come out in unexpected ways and the structure 
 falls. There must be a real desire to have a 
 closely knit organization in which each individual 
 is recognized as such, and not merely as one of a 
 mass with a number instead of a name. The 
 number may be necessary as a book-keeping 
 expedient, but no man who is only a " number" 
 to the man at the top can retain his full measure 
 of self-respect and be a real unit in such an 
 organization. 
 
 Each member of the organization must be 
 made to feel that he is really a member of the 
 family instead of being an appendage to a 
 machine, with only a number tag as a designation. 
 
 The price of building such an organization is 
 not one of money, as before stated. It is the 
 giving up of most of the old idea of aloofness 
 and superiority, the getting of a really human 
 feeling for the whole organization. This 'does 
 not mean that undue familiarity is necessary or 
 desirable but it does mean that we must lay aside 
 all feeling that would prevent us from being as 
 fair in judging others as we wish them to be in 
 judging us, to drop any paternal attitude we 
 might have acquired. The price is in realizing 
 
12 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 that it requires personal work and human con- 
 tact; that the man in the shop must always 
 be considered as a human being with similar 
 instincts and desires to our own, and that in 
 making rules and regulations we consider how 
 the same rule would appeal to us were the cir- 
 cumstances reversed. 
 
 BEING MISUNDERSTOOD 
 
 We must expect that our motives will be mis- 
 understood and that a certain amount of suspi- 
 cion will be found at the beginning. But we 
 must not forget that unscrupulous managers have 
 "put over" various kinds of wage cuts and speed- 
 ing-up devices under different guises, that we 
 might also be suspicious were we in the workers' 
 shoes. Then too there are over assertive in- 
 dividuals in the shop as elsewhere, who are never 
 satisfied, and who want everything in sight for 
 themselves. But we must not be misled nor 
 discouraged by a few obstacles, and we will find 
 that the great majority of the workers will 
 respond just as fast as they understand and 
 appreciate the motives and the objects to be 
 attained. 
 
 Let us bear in mind that the real object is to 
 secure the interest of every worker in the success 
 of the plant, to make them realize that the more 
 
BUILDING AN ORGANIZATION 13 
 
 they know about the work, the more they help in 
 every way possible, the better for all, including 
 themselves, in some substantial manner. And as 
 it is necessary to arouse and maintain interest in 
 the work and in the welfare of the plant, we 
 should consider as many ways as possible of 
 securing this interest which is so much to be 
 desired, not only for itself, but for its effect upon 
 output. 
 
 AROUSING INTEREST 
 
 There are many ways of arousing and main- 
 taining interest and new ways will crop up from 
 time to time when we give the matter systematic 
 and careful attention. A few methods are sug- 
 gested herewith, some of which are being used 
 with satisfactory results in different places. 
 These are only suggestions and may be modified 
 or greatly improved upon to fit the special con- 
 ditions of each plant. 
 
 Every progressive concern goes to considerable 
 expense and uses great care to arouse enthusiasm 
 in each salesman regarding the merits of their 
 product. Every salesman can do better work 
 with a firm conviction that the product he sells 
 has many points of superiority over rival products. 
 Yet few firms ever pay any attention as to 
 whether the men and women who make the 
 
14 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 product, even know what it is for. Is it not 
 reasonable to suppose that if the workers can be 
 enthused over the product, perhaps by the same 
 or by entirely different methods than is used for 
 the salesmen, that they will try to make it even 
 better or at least to maintain its quality? 
 
 At one of the airplane factories which actually 
 built planes for us during the war, they considered 
 it good business to give the workers a recess for 
 an hour or even two, on occasions when new 
 types of planes were being put through their 
 paces by the aviators. This cost money and 
 might be considered to have delayed production. 
 But the result was more careful attention to 
 details, greater care in all parts of the work, 
 and the loss of production was soon made up, 
 unconsciously perhaps, by the workers who were 
 thrilled by the performance of the machines 
 which they had helped to build. 
 
 This also has another and perhaps sub-con- 
 scious effect in the recognition of the workers as 
 being necessary in the production of the planes 
 as well as being humanly interested in seeing 
 them go through their paces. 
 
 No opportunity of this kind should be over- 
 looked, particularly those which will impress 
 the workers with the merits of the product on 
 which they are working. 
 
BUILDING AN ORGANIZATION 15 
 
 EXPLAINING THE PRODUCT 
 
 Details of the various parts of the product, 
 particularly the part on which they are working, 
 showing the relation of each piece to the others, 
 can well be shown in enlarged drawings, or by 
 the parts themselves, in section or otherwise as 
 may seem best. 
 
 This of course assumes that we have abandoned 
 the plan of keeping the workers in ignorance 
 of their work or the details of its production. 
 There may be places and reasons for keeping 
 some things secret but these are few and far 
 between and most fancied secrets are secrets only 
 in the imagination of the deluded proprietor. 
 There are to be sure, cases where the foremen 
 and superintendents throw a veil of secrecy 
 around some of the methods which they have 
 introduced. In some cases however this is to 
 hide the fact that they have stolen them from 
 some other shop or to prevent outsiders seeing 
 how out-of-date they are. 
 
 The benefit to be gained by keeping shop 
 secrets away from the workers themselves are 
 so minute that there is very seldom any excuse 
 for even attempting it. It is notorious that the 
 departments of shops which are kept from the 
 
16 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 gaze of the visitor are invariably those with the 
 most antiquated equipment and methods. 
 
 Showing the parts of the machine or other 
 apparatus which is being worked on, gives the 
 best kind of an object lesson on the effect of 
 inaccuracies in the different parts. It empha- 
 sizes the need of care in the work and cannot 
 fail to interest the worker in trying to bejmore 
 careful. 
 
 THE BULLETIN BOARD 
 
 A large Bulletin Board in a conspicuous place 
 can be made very effective in promoting human 
 relationship and securing interest in the work at 
 the same time. This work should be put in the 
 hands of some live member of the organization 
 who will avoid the usual dry-as-dust announce- 
 ments. Short pithy paragraphs, exceptionally 
 good cartoons, snappy poems which bear on the 
 affairs of the industry or the country, and other 
 matters can be used to advantage. These can 
 be so planned as to be of live interest and to 
 arouse, unconsciously perhaps, a desire to do 
 one's best for a concern which takes pains to let 
 the whole shop know how things are going. 
 
 Even regular notices can be made interesting by 
 the right wording. In one case where a vacation, 
 
BUILDING AN ORGANIZATION 17 
 
 with pay, was being announced as an experiment 
 the wording was something like this: 
 
 "In order not to delay the work of the shop it will be nec- 
 essary to arrange vacations with care. This can be done 
 with a little cooperation. It is up to you whether these 
 vacations become a habit or a memory." 
 
 The spirit of the announcement coupled with 
 the spirit of the man who wrote it, which was 
 well known to every employee, assured the 
 vacations becoming a habit instead of a memory. 
 
 Bulletins concerning orders which are in the 
 shop or which will be in process aid greatly in 
 interesting the whole force. These can usually 
 be given with a little forethought and care in an 
 interesting manner. And they help to make 
 the work in hand interesting to the workers in 
 different ways. 
 
 Can there be any question as to the men at 
 the Ford forge shop being more interested in their 
 work on forgings for Liberty motor cylinders, 
 than as though they had not known what they 
 were for? Even the most monotonous work, 
 such as running a bolt cutter, becomes more 
 interesting if the bolts happen to be going 
 to the Trans-Siberian railways or to other in- 
 teresting places. 
 
 A map of the railway on the Bulletin Board 
 
18 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 together with some interesting information about 
 the railway and the people, would help along the 
 general interest in the order. If the bolts hap- 
 pened to be going to that part of the world from 
 which the operator came from, it would certainly 
 pay to let him know as much about it as possible. 
 Holidays of different kinds can readily form 
 the basis for an interesting bulletin. This is 
 just as true of those we do not celebrate as those 
 we do. In the case of the foreign holidays, it 
 will do much to promote good feeling to have a 
 nicely worded Bulletin about them as they occur. 
 Some little recognition of the day, by having the 
 foremen wear the appropriate flower or flag, has 
 been found to prevent absences on that day. 
 This also helps greatly the work of Americaniza- 
 tion, which is becoming increasingly important. 
 Schools for the teaching of English can also be 
 used to advantage and form a bond of sympathy 
 and interest which may be far reaching in their 
 results. 
 
 PROGRESS REPORTS 
 
 Special Bulletin Boards can be used to show 
 Progress Reports of different divisions as well 
 as attendance records, although these should be 
 handled very judiciously in order to avoid the 
 appearance of attempting to create unhealthy 
 
BUILDING AN ORGANIZATION 19 
 
 rivalry or as a speeding-up process, in its undesir- 
 able form. 
 
 Records of good output from different depart- 
 ments, particularly those which relate to quality 
 of the work done, are sure to be of interest. 
 These can be accompanied by examples of de- 
 fects which caused the rejection of a part or which 
 made it necessary to have it repaired or done 
 over. Object lessons as to why certain work is 
 bad and what caused it, are not only educational 
 but have a salutary effect in preventing its 
 duplication. A little talk or printed bulletin 
 regarding the cause of the defect, in plain shop 
 language, is sure to be effective. 
 
 Exhibits of the work of the company in much 
 the same manner as is done to attract customers 
 always appeals to the men who made it. They 
 take pride in pointing out the parts on which 
 they worked if it happens to be only a small 
 part of the finished product. Lantern slides, 
 showing the product, showing the different 
 offices or branch stores or factories and showing 
 the machines as set up for use in other factories, 
 all instill a pride of accomplishment in those 
 who have helped to produce them. It is also 
 advisable where possible, to have the wives and 
 families attend these exhibits. 
 
 Motion pictures suitably selected to show 
 
20 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 either the getting of the raw materials used; 
 the use of the finished product; the people who 
 have produced the material with which we work ; 
 the users of the machinery, perhaps in far away 
 lands; all tend to tie the organization into a com- 
 pact group with a group consciousness and a 
 pride in being a part of such an organization. 
 
 We are just learning that production extends 
 far beyond the shop walls and that it is just as 
 necessary to keep the minds of the workers 
 occupied with pleasant thoughts as to give him a 
 pleasant place in which to work. This does not 
 mean that the shop should undertake to provide 
 all his entertainment, as this would naturally 
 arouse resentment. But on the other hand his 
 opportunities for recreation have a direct effect 
 on production and on labor turnover and where 
 it is possible to combine instruction and recreation, 
 as is often the case with motion pictures, it 
 should not be overlooked. An auditorium, either 
 in the shop itself or which can be secured when 
 desired for get-to-gethers of various kinds, has 
 proved an excellent way of promoting the group 
 spirit. The Gisholt Company of Madison, Wis. 
 uses its auditorium to great advantage in this way, 
 
 The Gisholt Company also provides a splendid 
 course of instruction for men who desire to 
 become expert operators of their machines, these 
 
BUILDING AN ORGANIZATION 21 
 
 courses being open to certain numbers of their 
 own men and also to men from other companies 
 who care to send them for this instruction. 
 This gives other firms an opportunity to extend 
 a rare privilege to some of their own men and 
 there are few cases where the opportunity is not 
 appreciated and where it does not pay big 
 dividends. If, in such instances, there is still a 
 fear that they will go elsewhere afterward, 
 there is usually something wrong with the 
 management of the organization. In too many 
 cases where apparent ingratitude is found, the 
 management has tried to make a few privileges 
 take the place of proper shop conditions or 
 standard wages. 
 
 It is impossible in passing, to refrain from 
 commenting on the wonderful spirit of self- 
 reliance and helpfulness which is developed by 
 the Gisholt course already referred to. This is 
 an intensive course with hard work crowded into 
 every hour of the day, and yet the personality 
 of the instructors, the atmosphere which per- 
 vades the school, makes its impression on nearly 
 every man who is fortunate enough to take the 
 course. It is another example of the value of 
 having personal relations on a basis of square 
 dealing and trustfulness, rather than of suspicion 
 and distrust. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 FORGETTING THE HUMAN ELEMENT 
 
 Many shop managers are too apt to overlook 
 the fact that the men in the shop are just as 
 much human beings as themselves. Our large 
 establishments, where for convenience in book- 
 keeping we give each man a number, has much to 
 do with this, and as a consequence we think of 
 men as numbers instead of as individual beings. 
 In other cases it is hard for those of us who have 
 come up through the shop to realize how condi- 
 tions have changed. Some men who have 
 worked their way up through all sorts of ad- 
 versity can see no reason why men should not 
 work 10 to 12 hours a day now just as they did, 
 and for the same pay. But the measure of a 
 day's work has changed just as has the value 
 of a dollar when measured by the commodity it 
 buys. 
 
 The increased size of our shops has made it 
 impossible for the "boss" or "old man" to 
 have the same personal relations as before. 
 But that is no reason for assuming that the men 
 are not as human and as capable of interest as 
 
 22 
 
FORGETTING THE HUMAN ELEMENT 23 
 
 ever. We were always interested when an order 
 from a foreign country or from a distant state, 
 came into the shop. The same interest can be 
 aroused today if we but try to do so. 
 
 In addition to the operations themselves, some 
 of which are of necessity simple and monotonous, 
 there are great possibilities in securing the 
 interest in the business as a whole. And this 
 may easily have a widespread influence on the 
 community, on the whole industry and on the 
 nation. 
 
 PREVENT ERRONEOUS INFORMATION 
 
 Those who do not believe that workers take 
 any interest in the business side of industry 
 have only to consult the librarians in large cities 
 to see what classes of books are being read. 
 And just as it is the part of wisdom to teach your 
 child the things he should know in the proper 
 manner, so is it better to prevent distorted ideas 
 regarding the running of a business from being 
 absorbed as truth by the workers in your own 
 shop. Is it not better to talk to them frankly 
 about many of the details of the business than to 
 have them get an exaggerated idea of the profits 
 or of their share in producing them? 
 
 Much dissatisfaction is caused by men believ- 
 ing that labor is confined to those who work 
 
 
24 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 with their hands, and this has been fostered by 
 the false pride of those who like to feel that they 
 are above those whose work is manual. A little 
 time devoted to showing just what part each 
 kind of work plays in the finished product, will 
 help give a good foundation for future discussions. 
 We can all help to make a much more correct 
 understanding of the real situation by pointing 
 out, with absolute fairness, just the part each 
 plays in the field of productive effort. 
 
 We can show the necessity of the first idea 
 of the machine to be built, the making of the 
 design with its modifications so as to make it 
 work satisfactorily and to enable it to be built 
 at a fair price. We can show the necessity of 
 designing special tools, fixtures and gages for its 
 production, the training of men and women for 
 the work, the cost of the equipment, the interest 
 on the investment, the cost of superintendence, 
 the cost of taxes and of fire insurance, the cost 
 of selling the product, the shipping cost and the 
 necessity for a margin to meet emergencies. 
 
 While there may be honest differences of 
 opinions as to the relative values of the different 
 kinds of services, the average man without 
 business experience will soon see that he is not 
 versed in the details and that all the work is 
 not done in the shop. 
 
FORGETTING THE HUMAN ELEMENT 25 
 
 THE INTEREST OF WORKING FOR YOURSELF 
 
 The housewife has many monotonous tasks. 
 Washing dishes three times a day, sweeping, 
 dusting, ironing, mending socks, and other duties 
 are not in themselves particularly exhilarating 
 or enjoyable. No intelligent woman could be 
 expected to take a keen interest in them, if the 
 work itself was all there was to it. But these 
 are, in the case of a well-established house, only 
 a part of the story, a mixture of the bitter with 
 the sweet. And while washing dishes does be- 
 come monotonous, the housewife knows that it is 
 a necessary part of running a house and that 
 she also shares the more pleasant portions of the 
 game of life. She is a partner in the firm and 
 knows that the fewer dishes she breaks, and the 
 more time she gets for other work, the more 
 money they will have to spend for other things. 
 
 The kitchen-maid may very easily find the 
 dish washing a drudge's task, while the house- 
 wife does not so consider it. The difference lies 
 in the interest of the worker in the household as 
 a member of it. If the maid has no interest 
 beside the usual financial return, she breathes a 
 sigh of relief when the job is finished, just as the 
 man in the shop on a monotonous job looks 
 longingly for quitting time. This is particularly 
 
26 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 true of where the work is planned out in every 
 detail and the worker has no voice in the planning. 
 
 How THE ATTITUDE OF MIND AFFECTS WORK 
 
 Just as the housewife does many monotonous 
 and disagreeable tasks joyfully because she has a 
 real interest in the success of the domestic part- 
 nership, so the husband does equally monotonous 
 work without a murmur if he too has an interest 
 of some sort in it. If, however, he is only a 
 number on the payroll, an appendage to a 
 machine because he can supply certain move- 
 ments which are difficult to do mechanically, 
 he is apt to be far happier helping to do the dishes 
 at home, than he is in the shop. 
 
 There are several ways of arousing his interest, 
 depending somewhat on conditions in the shop 
 and also on his individual temperament. One is 
 an interest in the work itself and another is an 
 interest in the shop as a whole. Both presuppose 
 a comfortable living wage, while an additional 
 bonus of some sort makes a man feel as though 
 he were really a part of the institution. 
 
 The financial interest, however, is by no means 
 the only one to be considered. Neither is it the 
 strongest motive in all cases, assuming of course 
 that a fair living is assured by the regular wage. 
 There is an ever-growing desire on the part of 
 
FORGETTING THE HUMAN ELEMENT 27 
 
 workers for a voice of some sort in the manage- 
 ment of the shop, especially as to working 
 conditions. Nor is this feeling confirmed to the 
 workers. The Babson conference on coopera- 
 tion which was composed of some 200 employers, 
 representing over 600,000 employees, was unani- 
 mous in advocating the participation of the 
 worker in the details of shop management. 
 Autocracy in the shop was declared as much out 
 of date as autocracy in national government, 
 and various plans for securing industrial democ- 
 racy were freely discussed. 
 
 AUTOCRACY OUT-OF-DATE 
 
 This does not mean that the management of 
 the plant is to be turned over to the workers, 
 few of whom have ever had any experience in 
 business methods. It does mean, however, that 
 the autocratic and arbitrary making of rules, the 
 discharge of men without reasonable cause, the 
 setting of rates without consulting the workers, 
 are not in keeping with modern methods of shop 
 management. 
 
 By giving the workers a voice in these matters, 
 through representatives elected by them,, or 
 what is known as shop committees, a new field 
 of interest is aroused, entirely aside from the 
 work itself, and an interest which has a strong 
 
28 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 hold on some temperaments. Managers who 
 have tried some such plan are highly pleased with 
 its workings in most cases. It puts responsibility 
 on the men and in nearly every case makes 
 the most radical men more careful and more 
 conservative, less liable to advocate unsound 
 measures. 
 
 Committees of this kind are being educated 
 into the fundamentals of doing business and in 
 this way the average worker ceases to expect the 
 impossible in the way of wage and bonus. 
 
 -f- OVERHEAD COST NOT APPRECIATED 
 
 The average shop man is fairly well posted in 
 the cost of material and labor, but the fact that 
 the overhead charges average one and a half 
 times the cost of direct labor is not appreciated. 
 Nor would it be believed unless backed up by 
 evidence of such expenses as superintendence, 
 rent, heat, power, light, taxes, etc. 
 
 A little time spent in explaining the cost of 
 supervision will make it plain that the less the 
 work done needs looking after by the foreman, 
 the less supervision the shop needs, the more 
 can go into wages or bonus, or both. In other 
 words, the more we look on the workers in the 
 shop as a part of the institution, the more they 
 can be made to feel that they are not merely a 
 
FORGETTING THE HUMAN ELEMENT 29 
 
 part of the shop equipment, but that they are 
 really a part of the organization, the more they 
 will be interested in the work and the less will 
 be labor turnover. 
 
 *JL RESPONSIBILITY HAS GOOD EFFECT 
 
 It must not be expected, however, that all 
 this can be accomplished without striking snags 
 of different kinds. There is sure to be a few men 
 in the shop who will be thorns in the flesh. They 
 are apt to be skeptical, over-critical and suspi- 
 cious as to the sincerity of any employer. Un- 
 fortunately they too frequently have cause for 
 suspicion. But in most cases this variety can 
 be handled by putting them on the committee 
 or by suggesting that the men elect them. Re- 
 sponsibility sobers the most radical man and 
 they often prove to be the most valuable men in 
 work of this kind. 
 
 This sort of industrial democracy is growing 
 in many quarters and in many lines of work, 
 from machine shops to large department stores, 
 and there are few cases where this plan has been 
 abandoned after a fair trial, which speaks 
 volumes. 
 
 The way in which responsibility sobers the 
 judgment may be illustrated by the experience 
 of the Filene department store in Boston, Mass. 
 
30 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 Every employee of this company automatically 
 belongs to an association which gives him or her 
 a voice in the government of the store. The 
 employees elect a board which passes upon all 
 questions of discharge, should the employee feel 
 that he has not been fairly treated. Every 
 member of this board is an employee 'and its 
 decision is final. The firm is perfectly satisfied 
 with their decisions. A well-known judge has 
 reviewed a large number of their decisions and 
 has stated that they are as fair as those handed 
 down by the average court. 
 
 There is also another instance of careful con- 
 sideration of the interests of the firm. The 
 question of an extra holiday was under discussion 
 with many reasons why it should have been 
 granted. But, owing to the season it was dis- 
 covered that it meant a loss in sales which would 
 go to other stores and the employees voted to 
 work instead of taking the extra holiday, although 
 it cut them out of an enjoyable week-end. This is 
 all the more worthy of note because it is the 
 Filene custom to pay full time on all holidays. 
 The responsibility prevented them from decid- 
 ing in a selfish manner for their own pleasure. 
 
 Is it not reasonable to suppose that the average 
 employee in a machine shop will decide as in- 
 telligently and as conscientiously as the average 
 
FORGETTING THE HUMAN ELEMENT 31 
 
 employee in a department store? And can we 
 doubt the effect of such a spirit on the production 
 of the shop? 
 
 DEMOCRACY IN MAKING PIPES L 
 
 Another example of industrial democracy is 
 found in the plant of Wm. De Muth & Co. 
 located at Richmond Hill, N. Y., manufacturers 
 of a line of French briar and meerschaum pipes 
 and smokers' articles. The special machinery 
 and processes involved require the services of 
 about eight hundred people. 
 
 "Recognizing the imperative need for closer coopera- 
 tion between employer and employee the company about 
 August, 1917, installed a system of organization govern- 
 ment based on the principles of the Constitution of the 
 United States and known as 'Industrial Democracy.' 
 It provides that the legislative body, or Congress, re- 
 ferred to above has, with the confirmation of the Cabi- 
 net, the power to enact and enforce all laws, rules and 
 regulations for the conduct of the factory, and its deci- 
 sions are binding as well upon the company as upon the 
 employees. The Cabinet is composed of members of the 
 executive board, together with the factory and the sales 
 managers, the president of the corporation being its pre- 
 siding officer. 
 
 "The Senate includes the superintendent, the heads of 
 departments and the factory foremen. As this body al- 
 
 1 From the American Machinist, by ELLSWORTH SHELDON. 
 
32 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 ready existed when the system was installed, the neces- 
 sity for creating it did not arise, but the constitution 
 provides that changes in the personnel of the factory 
 executives or additions to their number may be made by 
 the legislative bodies. Ordinarily if a new foreman were 
 needed a candidate would be elected by the House, subject 
 to the confirmation of the Senate and Cabinet, but if a man 
 of special or technical training were required and such 
 a man was not available among the employees the Cabinet 
 would submit a candidate from the outside, subject to the 
 ratification of the other bodies. 
 
 "The House of Representatives is limited to thirty mem- 
 bers who are elected annually at a mass meeting of the 
 employees. As the number employed at present is about 
 eight hundred, one member of the House therefore rep- 
 resents about twenty-five employees. To be eligible for 
 membership the candidate must have three qualifica- 
 tions: First, he must have been in the employ of the com- 
 pany one year or more; second, he must understand and 
 speak English; third, he must be known by all to be 'on 
 the square.' In this application of democratic principles 
 there is no question of equal suffrage as the gentler sex is 
 well represented in both legislative branches. 
 
 "Meetings of the three governing bodies are held regu- 
 larly each week, the Senate being convened at 2 o'clock 
 p.m. and the House at 3 : 30. The meeting place is a room 
 on an upper floor of the office building far enough removed 
 from the factory to avoid the noise and confusion. The 
 Cabinet meets at 10 o'clock in the morning of the same day. 
 Each house of Congress elects a chairman, or president, 
 and a secretary who keeps a minute record of all proceedings. 
 
 "Business is transacted according to the usual parlia- 
 mentary procedure. Questions of wages, holidays, hours 
 
FORGETTING THE HUMAN ELEMENT 33 
 
 of work, benefit, etc., come under discussion; troubles 
 or misunderstandings are brought to light and straight- 
 ened out; new and better plans of operation are discussed 
 and recommended whether it be improved machinery, 
 tools, methods or men, these bodies of Congress have the 
 privilege of using and do use their brains in the interest 
 of such better service. Committees are appointed by either 
 branch separately or jointly, and there are standing commit- 
 tees on such matters as safety, suggestion, welfare, ways 
 and means, etc., each reporting to its respective appointing 
 body its findings, which are deliberated upon and if found 
 feasible are recommended for enactment into law. 
 
 "A resolution by any branch, including the Cabinet, 
 does not become law until ratified by both the other bodies, 
 but when such resolution does become law it is considered 
 a mutual obligation. Suggestions upon any pertinent sub- 
 ject may be made to the Suggestion Committee, which is 
 empowered to make any award they deem suitable up to $5. 
 If in its estimation a suggestion is of greater value it pre- 
 sents a resolution before the legislative bodies and the addi- 
 tional amount of the award is thus determined. Likewise 
 the Safety and Welfare committees may order minor changes 
 and improvements looking toward the safety of the employee 
 and the betterment of his working conditions, reserving all 
 matters of major importance for the action of the Congress. 
 
 How DIVIDENDS ABB PAID 
 
 "At the expiration of each two-week period the effi- 
 ciency of the entire shop is determined by the relative 
 value of its output to its cost of production; then an em- 
 ployees' dividend is paid, the basis of which is 50 percent 
 of the savings accomplished during the two weeks by 
 improved efficiency. If, as was the case when I was present, 
 
34 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 the dividend was 16 percent, then each employee receives 
 in a separate envelope marked 'Employee's Dividend/ 
 an amount of cash equal to 15 percent of the wages he 
 drew for that two-weeks' period. The 1 percent reserved 
 pays for an insurance policy on the life of each employee, 
 and the face of that policy calls for an amount equal to the 
 annual earnings of such individual. 
 
 "To the leading department for each two-week period is 
 presented a large American flag which is hung in the de- 
 partment, serving not only as an evidence of supremacy, 
 but a constant incentive to further effort and an emblem of 
 patriotism. This flag, however, will not stay in one de- 
 partment without effort on the part of the employees thereof, 
 as unless their lead in efficiency is maintained the flag will 
 at the end of the period go to that department that has suc- 
 ceeded in boosting the record. The first department win- 
 ning the flag three times is given a supper, the cost of which 
 is liberally shared by the company and attended by the 
 officials. 
 
 "As a result of the location and the unsettled condition 
 of the labor market the employees comprise a rather mixed 
 nationality, and until recently the labor turnover at the 
 plant, in common with many other industries, was such 
 as to cause much disquiet, but since the installation of 
 this system of shop government each employee realizes 
 that instead of his being a mere cog in a wheel, to be used or 
 dispensed with at some unknown person's convenience, 
 he has become a useful and intelligent unit of the organiza- 
 tion with a voice in its management, something to-say about 
 how long and under what conditions his best work can be 
 done and how much he shall receive for it. This has the 
 effect of increasing his self-respect and respect for his job, 
 together with a sense of his personal obligation to his 
 
FORGETTING THE HUMAN ELEMENT 35 
 
 fellows. It is giving him an insight into the problems 
 that harass his employers and it creates respect for them 
 and makes him willingly share their burdens. Above all 
 it awakens the sense of civic responsibility, inspires him to 
 study our language and our customs, and in that way strikes 
 a blow at what is perhaps the most insidious evil at the root 
 of our republican form of government the ignorance and 
 indifference of the individual of and to the things that are of 
 vital importance. 
 
 THE SYSTEM TEACHES AMERICANISM 
 
 "The following is an instance of the way in which the 
 system teaches Americanism. A resolution was intro- 
 duced and passed in the Congress naming certain days 
 as holidays, and though this list was made up by a body 
 two-thirds of whom were of foreign birth, every day named 
 was strictly an American legal holiday. If an employee 
 should remain away from the factory any day not included 
 among the holidays appearing on the accepted list without 
 reasonable excuse he loses one-quarter of his dividend; 
 if two days he would lose one-half, three days, three-quarters, 
 and if four days he would lose the entire dividend for that 
 period; that is, if he lost four days out of a possible 12 he 
 would lose the dividend that would accrue during the 12- 
 day period. The object of this somewhat drastic penalty is 
 to avoid low production and running the shop shorthanded, 
 which obviously would cut down the surplus available 
 for dividends, and as it applies to everybody, it is therefore 
 fair to all. 
 
 "The system was installed by Albert J. Leitch, of Phila- 
 delphia, who is an enthusiast on the subject of cooperation. 
 Mr. Leitch does not claim perfection for his method, but 
 he says that it is, like the American Government, the best 
 
36 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 there is, and though it has been in operation only a year 
 in the Demuth plant it has already produced substantial 
 results and its advantages are growing more evident each 
 day not only in increased financial returns, but in smoother 
 production." 
 
 WORKING OUT A THEORY IN SHOP 
 
 MANAGEMENT 
 
 The changing attitude of shop managers and 
 owners is shown in the view of executives ex- 
 pressed in what follows. The practical applica- 
 tion of these ideas shows very clearly in the 
 part which deals with the White Motor Co. 
 This is particularly interesting on account of 
 its utilization of men of over 40 years of age and 
 the way in which the shop is run by committees, 
 giving the men a direct voice in the management. 
 
 The majority of the opinions here expressed 
 are those of a careful observer of human nature, a 
 successful manager of a large shop, whose judg- 
 ment is based on actual manufacturing conditions. 
 Only modesty on his part prevents me from quot- 
 ing him by name and crediting him with the 
 first part of this section, as I should like to do. 
 The second part comes from a source from which 
 I am permitted to quote only the firm, but not 
 the individuals who have helped to build the 
 system to its present successful stage. 
 
FORGETTING THE HUMAN ELEMENT 37 
 
 This manager views the question of labor 
 turnover from two angles that of securing such 
 productive efficiency as will enable a larger 
 return to be given to the worker, and the keeping 
 down of the payroll to please directors who 
 believe this is the only way to secure the largest 
 returns for themselves. Regarding the second 
 point, he makes it clear that whittling down wages 
 does not secure the largest product from the 
 equipment because there is no incentive to further 
 efforts. In fact, wherever piece rates are cut 
 when wage earnings exceed a given amount 
 there is a distinct effort to keep down the output. 
 
 LABOR TURNOVER KEEPS DOWN BOTH PAYROLL 
 AND PRODUCTION 
 
 In the same way a large labor turnover enables 
 a goodly proportion of those on the payroll to 
 jmain at the minimum wage, and this is proba- 
 bly one of the reasons why excessive labor turn- 
 over has not been more strongly objected to in 
 the past. With a small labor turnover we have a 
 comparatively constant body of men, and in such 
 cases it becomes necessary to increase the daily 
 or hourly rates occasionally, if not regularly, 
 which is not very pleasing to some types of shop 
 managers. 
 
38 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 If it means anything to a firm to be able to 
 point with pride to men who have been with 
 them for many years it means that the fact of 
 their working in the shop so long a period is an 
 asset to the company and consequently it has a 
 cash value. For there are other factors besides 
 actual output to add to a man's value. Dependa- 
 bility in emergencies; care of machines and of 
 products; effect on the men, as well as other 
 things which are difficult to measure in dollars 
 and cents, all have real value to a concern and 
 add to the cash balance at the end of the year. 
 
 On the other hand there are men in every con- 
 cern who could well be spared, yet ties such as 
 long service and others prohibit their dismissal 
 unless it is desired to violate the rule of fair play 
 and cause an actual loss owing to its impression 
 on the other men. When an efficiency engineer 
 undertakes to rejuvenate an old shop he generally 
 begins by making a clean sweep, especially of the 
 heads of departments. This course also has its 
 disadvantages, as many a shop which has suffered 
 from the effects of an incompetent systematizer 
 has found out to its sorrow. 
 
 How THE WHITE MOTOR COMPANY DOES IT 
 
 Coming now from the theories of this careful 
 observer to a concrete example of what one large 
 
FORGETTING THE HUMAN ELEMENT 39 
 
 firm has been doing along similar lines, it is in- 
 teresting to note that some very advanced ideas 
 of equitable relationship toward the men are 
 being carried out in a number of cases. 
 
 The work which the White Motor Co. of 
 Cleveland has been doing for a number of years 
 in this way is highly interesting and might almost 
 be called revolutionary by the reactionary mana- 
 ger. Some time ago those in charge of the 
 employment of men noticed that, in common 
 with almost all large manufacturing concerns, 
 the average age of their employees was very low 
 about 26 years, according to the statistics 
 gathered. In some larger shops it is even lower, 
 and this alone accounts in all probability for 
 much of the labor turnover. The spirit of 
 change and unrest is usually much stronger at 
 this age than later, due in part to the desire for 
 more experience, which is a very good trait, 
 but does not assist large production while the 
 changes are going on. 
 
 Beginning about three years ago the White 
 Motor Co. decided to raise the average age of its 
 employees, and, reversing the policy of Dr. 
 Osier, which has done the machine-manufactur- 
 ing industry so much harm and has worked such 
 cruel hardships on many perfectly capable men of 
 middle age, it now gives preference to men over 
 
40 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 30 years of age. Needless to say the company 
 does not chloroform him when he reaches the 
 age of 40 years. 
 
 Continuing this feature the White company has 
 gradually increased the average age of its em- 
 ployees to about 40 years, and at the same time 
 the production per man has increased in a most 
 interesting and hopeful manner. Part of this 
 increase is due no doubt to the fact that the 
 company has reduced its labor turnover 
 very materially, the average being between 
 3 and 4 percent a month, and this was in 
 spite of many of its men being called to the 
 colors. Along with this the number of absentees 
 from the shop during working hours has been 
 considerably reduced. This of itself is a highly 
 desirable accomplishment. 
 
 Realizing that proper wages and good shop 
 conditions were the two prime elements in the 
 successful handling of labor, the management 
 has grappled firmly with the problem and is 
 endeavoring intelligently to meet the changed 
 conditions of living and of ideas. A careful 
 study of the cost of living in Cleveland showed 
 the increase since 1914. With this as a basis 
 the weekly wages have been increased to equal 
 the increase in living cost. The interesting 
 point is that although the wages have about 
 
FORGETTING THE HUMAN ELEMENT 41 
 
 doubled, the actual cost of production has been 
 increased very little. 
 
 The shop is managed through committees, and 
 here is where the older men are particularly 
 valuable. Their experience, extending back over 
 many years in the shop, makes a most effective 
 balance wheel and aids greatly in securing a 
 safe interpretation of the newer ideas and 
 methods of management. The younger men 
 prevent the management from staying in a rut, 
 and the older men keep the changes within 
 commercial bounds. 
 
 Everything is done to make the men feel that 
 they are a part of the institution and not mere 
 cogs in the machinery. The employee is given 
 an opportunity to express himself through shop 
 committees which are elected by the men of the 
 different departments, one man representing 
 approximately ten employees. These commit- 
 tees, which change monthly on the rotary system, 
 meet every alternate week and shop conditions 
 are discussed. The meetings have brought 
 about many improvements and have been 
 profitable to the men and the company. A 
 spirit of friendly interest pervades the whole 
 establishment, and this without any of the 
 paternalism that frequently mars so many 
 well-intentioned plans. 
 
42 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 A COOPERATIVE STORE 
 
 The men run a cooperative store in the shop, 
 hiring their own clerk and directing it by a 
 committee chosen from among themselves. The 
 company furnishes the necessary space rent free. 
 For the present the store confines itself to selling 
 cigars, candy and the smaller commodities. 
 
 The company runs a splendid kitchen con- 
 ducted by competent people, which supplies all 
 or part of a meal at cost or less. The meal 
 includes soup, sandwiches and fruit. Some idea 
 of the popularity of the kitchen may be had from 
 the fact that during 1917 it served 599,280 
 sandwiches, an average of 2600 a day. The daily 
 average for soup was 1375 bowls; for coffee, 1103 
 cups, and for milk, 625 bottles. The average 
 monthly income was about $5000. About 215 
 office employees are fed in the dining room. 
 
 All kinds of healthful activities are encouraged. 
 A band of 40 pieces composed entirely of em- 
 ployees gives a concert in the corridor every 
 Wednesday noon. There is also a glee club 
 and a stringed orchestra. There were two base- 
 ball clubs during 1917, which won the city cham- 
 pionship, a soccer football club and a ladies' 
 bowling club. 
 
 Notwithstanding these features, the manage- 
 ment however believes, as stated before, that 
 
FORGETTING THE HUMAN ELEMENT 43 
 
 right wages and proper shop conditions are the 
 first considerations. 
 
 No women are employed in the shop, except in 
 the upholstering department, but they fill many 
 office positions. 
 
 Perhaps the most startling feature of the 
 management program is the method of increasing 
 wages with fair regularity. The theory is that a 
 man should become more valuable the longer he 
 is with the company. With this as a basis the 
 foreman who does not recommend his men for a 
 raise every six months is called into the office 
 and asked for an explanation. This procedure 
 is so contrary to the usual one of admonishing a 
 foreman for suggesting an increase that it seems 
 almost unbelievable; yet the plan is working 
 out very satisfactorily. 
 
 Here then is a clear indication of the trend 
 which is making management more and more a 
 truly scientific problem. The new methods of 
 management must constantly recognize the in- 
 dividuality of the men and must realize that they 
 are in no sense a part of the machine equipment, 
 as they are considered by some of the so-called 
 systems of management. Just how far these 
 ideas can be carried out in other shops depends 
 on divers conditions; in any event they are an 
 inspiration to those who are looking for newer 
 and better shop relations. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 SECURING INTEREST BY INSTRUCTION 
 
 The following suggestions as to methods of 
 interesting the employees in various plants are 
 based upon hints from the experience of Robert 
 B. Wolf. His work has been among pulp and 
 paper mills so that his plans must be modified 
 to some extent for machine shop work. As will 
 be seen the method is based upon a systematic 
 effort to educate the workers in the theory as well 
 as the practice of their occupation, and in this 
 way differs from much that has been previously 
 done in modern shops. It has, however, the 
 sound basis that no one can be interested in 
 things which they do not understand, and is 
 absolutely opposed to the plan which makes 
 employees merely automatons or appendages of 
 a machine of any kind. 
 
 An excellent method of arousing interest in 
 the individual is to make him see his relation to 
 the rest of the shop, and the part he plays in the 
 group as a whole. This is one of the reasons 
 that the working of men in teams is beneficial in 
 several ways. The group or team makes it very 
 evident to all that no one member is independent 
 
 44 
 
SECURING INTEREST BY INSTRUCTION 45 
 
 but that all depend on each other. The man 
 with an extremely individualistic nature soon 
 learns that he cannot hold himself aloof from the 
 rest but that all must do their share and do it 
 at the proper time, to secure the maximum output. 
 
 Team work shows every man in the group the 
 necessity for cooperation. A spurt on the part 
 of one and a lagging on the part of another, both 
 interfere with securing the best results. These 
 practical examples of the benefits of cooperation 
 help in making each man a better citizen as well 
 as a better man for the organization. 
 
 The group or team plan can be used exten- 
 sively in securing both quality and quantity and 
 is much better in every way than inciting indi- 
 vidual competition. When the completed product 
 depends on the work of ten different teams or 
 groups, it is easy to inaugurate a friendly rivalry 
 just as exists between football or baseball teams. 
 
 AVOID OVER-SPEEDING 
 
 Care should be taken, however, to avoid undue 
 stimulation, as excessive speeding up is sure to 
 have its reaction. There is a limit to the rate at 
 which men and women can work economically for 
 the firm, for themselves and for the community. 
 Special spurts can be made when occasion 
 really demands it, but it does not pay to set too 
 
46 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 hard a pace as a standard to be lived up to day 
 after day. It is far more important that every 
 one of the ten teams show a good average output 
 than that one or two make an excessive record 
 and three or four others fall behind the average. 
 
 The safest sort of stimulation is that of quality 
 rather than quantity. Mr. Wolf found this of 
 the greatest value in his work in the pulp and 
 paper mills. The desire for quality records led 
 the men in various groups to suggest means of 
 testing quality and they were encouraged to 
 work out new methods of securing it. The men 
 also had a hand in determining the quality, one 
 of their own number being chosen to help make 
 the tests. 
 
 Team records for quality and for spoiled work 
 can be posted with less danger of hard feelings 
 than in the case of individuals. And it can be 
 safely left to each group not to let the guilty 
 member or members forget who is responsible 
 for the low records. 
 
 ENCOURAGE MEN TO LEARN OF THEIR 
 WORK 
 
 The fear that men will learn the reasons for 
 shop processes and methods, and so be able to 
 take this knowledge to other shops, has caused 
 some to try and prevent men from knowing what 
 
ifiCURING INTEREST BY INSTRUCTION 47 
 
 they are doing. In heat treating for example, 
 the recording pyrometers are sometimes placed 
 in a locked room and only signal lamps used at 
 the furnaces. In other words, the men who 
 actually do the work, know nothing of the real 
 process, only that a red light means too hot or 
 a blue light too cold. 
 
 This method can hardly hope to secure or to 
 hold the interests of men who are worth while, 
 or who have the capacity to be of great value to 
 a plant. _ We must make up our minds that 
 before men can be really interested in their work, 
 they must know the whys and wherefores of it^ 
 all; they must know tlf^wliy" of the various 
 operations as well as "how" they are performed. 
 No one can be interested in^ work he does not 
 understand, nor can he aid in sqlying^the prob- 
 lems as they develop. We must teach them how 
 to do the work well, the results to be obtained and 
 why we think our way is best. And we must 
 realize that unless our employees are worth more 
 to us than to anyone else, it is probably because 
 we have not utilized them to the best advantage. 
 It is well to consider how much it would cost to 
 train a new man, with the chance of having to 
 train two or three before securing the right one, 
 before deciding that we cannot afford to pay 
 more than a certain fixed wage. Not only must 
 
48 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 the cost of hiring and firing be considered, but 
 also the value of the experience, the loyalty and 
 the possibilities of valuable suggestions. 
 
 CONFISCATING INVENTIONS DEMORALIZING 
 
 The handling of suggestions is a matter which 
 may mean much or little according to the meth- 
 ods employed. The practice of some concerns 
 of confiscating every invention of their employees 
 in consideration of a dollar or maybe ten, cannot 
 possibly secure loyalty or good feeling. An 
 adequate return will prove a good investment 
 in every case. In the same way, a system of 
 fair and just remuneration for suggestions which 
 save money for the firm, is sure to pay a big 
 dividend. A royalty is much better than a 
 lump sum, because this pays more in accord with 
 its value and it also stimulates the interest of 
 the whole force over a long period. 
 
 Having decided on the plan of stimulating the 
 interests of employees, the next step, and by 
 far the harder part of the proposition, is to decide 
 how this can be done. The experience of Robert 
 Wolf, who will be quoted quite extensively 
 in a later chapter, is of value as he was successful 
 to a marked degree. And the basis for his 
 success seems to be in teaching the workers the 
 reason for each step in the process, the effect 
 
SECURING INTEREST BY INSTRUCTION 49 
 
 of different methods, and all the fundamentals 
 of the portion of the industry in which they are 
 engaged. This is much more difficult than to 
 plan out a set of rules or a sequence of motions 
 to be automatically followed. But it is also 
 of much more value to the industry, to the man 
 and to the community. 
 
 Arousing the interest of the worker in his work 
 is of prime importance and it will pay to devote 
 considerable time and ingenuity in devising 
 ways and means of doing it, not to mention the 
 time to be spent after the way has been 
 discovered. There are few jobs where at least 
 some interest cannot be aroused either with 
 the operation itself, the machine or tools with 
 which the operation is performed, the part the 
 operation plays in the finished piece or some of 
 the history of the product and its distribution. 
 
 First we must get rid of the notion that the 
 only thing the worker should do is to turn out 
 as much product as possible (although this can 
 of course never be lost sight of), and that nothing 
 else is any of his business. Then we must find 
 the easiest point of interest which will at the same 
 time add to the man's knowledge and have a 
 bearing on his work. For we must not forget 
 that we all have a duty in the training of as 
 many men as possible, while not interfering 
 
50 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 too much with our production. The need of 
 skilled men has been clearly shown during the 
 past two years. 
 
 THE SNAGGING GRINDER 
 
 Running a plain, snagging grinder in the 
 foundry can be perhaps, one of the most uninter- 
 esting jobs to be found, but it is not hopeless. 
 
 First teach the man the necessity for wearing 
 goggles to protect his earning capacity for his 
 family as well as for his own comfort. Second, 
 the need of his own special goggles for sanitary 
 reasons. Third, that the wearing of goggles 
 is a duty to the community as men with im- 
 paired sight or blind are apt to become a charge 
 on the city, hence the community has a right 
 to insist on his taking care of his eyes. 
 
 The advantage of having the grinding wheel 
 kept true; the disadvantage of using a wheel 
 that is loaded or glazed; the difference between 
 the two; the fact that the grinding wheel is 
 made from a mineral or from the product of an 
 electric furnace, as the case may be; the way 
 in which the crystals are held in a bond; the 
 fact that a wheel is really a revolving cutter 
 with thousands of cutting points; the reasons 
 some grades and grains cut better and stay sharp 
 longer; the best speed to run the wheel; some 
 
SECURING INTEREST BY INSTRUCTION 51 
 
 idea of the power required; perhaps a notion 
 of where the power comes from, and similar 
 points can be used to get some sort of interest 
 in the job itself. Perhaps pictures, either stere- 
 opticon or motion pictures showing how these 
 grinding wheels are made, may make a lasting 
 impression. If it does it means more and better 
 work, together with better care of the wheels. 
 Perhaps none of these may appeal to all men 
 but there is some way unless they are of low 
 mentality, and it will usually pay to find it. 
 
 LOOK FOR INTEREST IN ALL OPERATIONS 
 If there are as many possible channels of 
 interest in a foundry snagging wheel, how many 
 more are there in other jobs. The common drill 
 press affords a number when the question is 
 carefully studied. 
 
 This work may well be placed in the hands of a 
 good man with imagination and human interest 
 and he will work out a plan which will be sure 
 to appeal, in some way or other, to all of normal 
 mentality. The others must be led as best 
 we may, but they rarely object to the more 
 monotonous occupations. 
 
 THE HEAT TREATING ROOM 
 We have already referred to the Heat Treating 
 Room and as it affords a good opportunity for 
 
 
52 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 interesting any live man or woman who works 
 in it, it makes a good starting place for sugges- 
 tions, along the lines practised by Mr. Wolf in his 
 pulp and paper mill work. 
 
 Many experienced men who have good success 
 in this work, depend in many cases entirely on 
 their sense of sight for the results obtained. 
 Some of these oppose the use of such instruments 
 as pyrometers, in the hopes of keeping the work 
 more or less of a secret. The more progressive 
 men and nearly all the modern plants, however, 
 have a full complement of such instruments, 
 knowing that this is the best way to secure uniform 
 results. 
 
 With the recording pyrometers in full sight of 
 all the furnace workers, they can see exactly what 
 is going on all the time and can also know what 
 has happened during the previous shift. This 
 is the best kind of educational work, especially 
 when someone will point out just the effects of 
 the different changes in temperatures on the 
 work; the results obtained with different quali- 
 ties of steel; the variations necessary to secure 
 the desired results; the effects of different meth- 
 ods of quenching, can all be made interesting 
 to almost any type of worker, if presented in the 
 right way. 
 
 The effect of all this on the quality as well as 
 
SECURING INTEREST BY INSTRUCTION 53 
 
 on the quantity of the product can be clearly 
 pointed out. Its effects on subsequent opera- 
 tions, if any, is also of interest, and shows how 
 the success of one department, depends to some 
 extent at least, on other departments. 
 
 VALUE OF EXAMPLES OF WORK 
 
 In the same way, the workers at the heat 
 treating furnaces can be shown how the previous 
 annealing and forging may affect the quality of 
 the work they do; how over-heating the steel for 
 forging or how forging it when too cold, will 
 make it impossible for them to secure good results, 
 at least by their regular treatment. If the work 
 can be saved by special treatment, this also 
 affords an excellent example for educational 
 treatment and one of the best opportunities for 
 arousing interest in the work. 
 
 Samples of the work, broken to show fractures, 
 just as is done in test rooms and in similar places, 
 will do much to make men feel that they are a real 
 part of the plant, that their work is vital and 
 necessary and they really belong to the " family" 
 which constitutes the organization. 
 
 A thoroughly equipped heat treating room 
 affords an excellent opportunity for trying out an 
 experiment of this kind. It requires the right 
 kind of leadership, which should come through 
 
54 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 the employment manager's office, but with this 
 leadership, it can be made attractive, because it 
 offers every man an opportunity to learn to be a 
 better workman as in the days of the old-time 
 apprenticeship. And if one department can be 
 made interesting, it will effect all the rest and the 
 others will suggest means of making them of 
 interest also. 
 
 One thing is certain, we cannot hope to keep 
 men interested unless they have an intelligent 
 understanding of the work they are doing. Igno- 
 rant routine and interest do not go together. 
 
 Mr. Wolf also found progress records of great 
 value in stimulating interest as well as production. 
 These were, however, records of quality rather 
 than quantity and had a better effect on that 
 account. They did not try to show which could 
 do the most work, but which could turn out the 
 best. 
 
 These records also give the men a chance to 
 compare the quality of the product with the 
 performance of the furnace, and to see at once 
 the effect of irregular heating. 
 
 It requires little imagination to see how this 
 heat treating department could be made in- 
 tensely interesting to any normal man or woman 
 with a little guidance of the right kind. It is, 
 however, more difficult in other departments and 
 
SECURING INTEREST BY INSTRUCTION 55 
 
 it is quite a problem to know how to handle 
 lathe work, bolt cutters and other similar work 
 so as to make them interesting. And yet, this 
 must be done if we are to work out a plan which 
 will be all we desire. 
 
 MAKING THE MAN MORE VALUABLE 
 
 ** ., iTMMBlriMiFfttmi^.. 
 
 Instruction in the use and care of instruments, 
 and at the same time on the effect of temperature 
 changes on the work in hand, must be done by 
 some one who understands how to make such 
 matters clear to the kind of men we employ in 
 these particular jobs. The instruction cannot 
 be too technical in the beginning and the work 
 in fact, requires considerable tact and much 
 skill as a teacher. 
 
 Some may object to giving time for Kinder- 
 garten lessons in heat treatment and pyrometers, 
 not realizing that instruction of this kind may 
 pay far better dividends than to merely teach 
 the men to watch for red, blue and white lights. 
 But the more knowledge of the fundamentals of 
 any branch of the industry we can get into the 
 minds of the men, the more intelligent work we 
 shall get and the less will be our expense for labor 
 turnover and for unsatisfactory work. And, 
 more than this, we shall build up a corps of 
 
56 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 loyal helpers which is the greatest asset any 
 business can have. 
 
 There are many ways in which information 
 can be imparted but we must not forget that the 
 greatest appeal can be made through the eye. 
 Pictures, sketches and diagrams make an impres- 
 sion which cannot be had in any other way, 
 especially when used by an intelligent and sympa- 
 thetic instructor. 
 
 The motion picture is bound to become a 
 great factor in all work of this kind and has 
 already been used very successfully in teaching 
 different phases of munition work. Lantern 
 slides of the stationary variety, or " stills" as we 
 call them in these days, can also be used to ad- 
 vantage. Both can be used to show operations 
 and the way in which work and the pyrometers 
 should be handled. 
 
 It is not enough, however, to tell these facts to a 
 boy or inexperienced man or woman. Care must 
 be taken to see that they understand what is 
 meant and also understand the reasons behind it. 
 
 The foreman who is an executive with pro- 
 duction his main object, is not the man to be 
 bothered with this. He seldom has either the 
 time or the experience to do the job as it must 
 be done for best results. It requires someone 
 with the teaching instinct. The vestibule or 
 
SECURING INTEREST BY INSTRUCTION 57 
 
 preliminary training school is a good place to 
 make a beginning, but in most cases the work 
 must not stop there. Not a week should go by 
 without some effort being made to increase the 
 knowledge or at least to maintain the interest 
 of the work. 
 
 The use of heat indicating and controlling 
 instruments is sure to interest anyone of ordinary 
 intelligence. The construction of these instru- 
 ments, the way in which they work and their 
 proper care are also features which will not only 
 secure interest but will greatly increase the 
 service to be obtained and reduce the cost of 
 repairs. The mere taking of an interest in 
 the instruments will be reflected in the quality 
 of the work, and quantity will take care of 
 itself. 
 
 These efforts need not all be technical or 
 strictly relating to the individual job. They can 
 relate to the shops as a whole, or to the industry 
 and the community. 
 
 THE ENGINE LATHE 
 
 One great reason the old-time machinist took 
 an interest in his work, was because he understood 
 it, because he knew the "why" of every machine 
 in the shop. One way to interest the present- 
 day shop man in his work is to see that he too 
 
58 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 knows the reasons behind the work he does 
 every day. In other words, he must be taught 
 more about the job than the mere pulling of 
 a lever if he is expected to be keenly interested 
 in it. 
 
 This means the teaching, in as simple a manner 
 as possible, of the fundamentals of the lathe, 
 the drilling machine, the miller, the planer and 
 shaper, and the grinding machine. It means 
 that instead of being satisfied when we have 
 taught a man how to do a single operation, we 
 must show him why the various things must be 
 done in a certain way. We must, not merely 
 tell him to keep the center holes in a bar clean, 
 but we must show him how the work cannot 
 run true, unless he does. And further, we must 
 show him how this affects the work, how it makes 
 additional work for the grinder, how it may easily 
 cause the rejection of a piece, if the error is too 
 great. 
 
 Much of this can be taught with almost no 
 loss of productive time, and it not only helps 
 interest the man, but it also makes him more 
 available for other kinds of work when occasion 
 demands. 
 
 One of the important factors in arousing in- 
 terest in work of various kinds, is to show the 
 connection of each operation with those which 
 
SECURING INTEREST BY INSTRUCTION 59 
 
 follow it. In engine lathe work, there are 
 perhaps five stages in bar work: 
 Cutting off 
 
 Centering and countersinking 
 Rough turning 
 Finish turning or grinding 
 Thread-cutting. 
 
 Care in cutting off to accurate length, helps 
 all the succeeding operations. Time lost and 
 work spoiled as the result of this can be easily 
 shown likewise the time saved in "good work" 
 which goes upon the right side of the ledger. 
 
 Centering and countersinking are also important 
 and affect the finished work. The boy on the 
 centering machine can be shown the necessity 
 for accurate centering and also the advantage of 
 uniform depth of the countersink. The lathe 
 hand should also understand the importance of 
 the lathe centers and the necessity for keeping 
 them clean and well lubricated with heavy oil or 
 white lead. Failure to keep the center hole 
 clean causes the work to run out of true so that 
 it is slightly eccentric when run with clean centers. 
 This means more work for the grinder, if the 
 work is to be finished by grinding. 
 
 If the grinding allowance is small, the work 
 may fail to clean up on one side. The necessity 
 of accurate centering and clean center holes and 
 
60 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 centers, also applies to finished turning and 
 thread-cutting. Thread-cutting can always be 
 made interesting if the fine points are made clear 
 to the worker. The principles of change gearing, 
 the depth of threads, the use of double and 
 triple threads, thread measurement, etc., can 
 all be used to secure and maintain interest in 
 the work. 
 
 These are merely suggestions which can be 
 enlarged to include most machines in the shop. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 INSTRUCTION IN THE SHOP 
 
 Few of us realize the difference between the 
 old days of apprenticeship and the present. 
 True the apprentice spent much more time than 
 was necessary in the actual learning of the trade 
 but he was absorbing a fund of general informa- 
 tion which showed him the interesting side of the 
 machine industry. He became familiar with 
 many kinds of work and learned the " why " of all 
 the machines in the shop. He learned how 
 patterns were made from drawings, how castings 
 were made from patterns, how machine forgings 
 were made and how tools were forged and 
 tempered. 
 
 Today the average operator knows nothing 
 but his own machine and in many cases is only 
 taught how to put a certain kind of work in the 
 machine and perform one operation on it. It 
 has not been considered necessary or desirable 
 to teach him more and no one has time if it were. 
 The foreman can no longer be a teacher, and 
 this is perhaps as well in most cases. 
 
 Special instructors are used in some shops, 
 particularly railroad shops, and these do re- 
 el 
 
62 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 markably good work not only with apprentices 
 but with adult operators. This works well in 
 the railroad shop where the work is seldom so 
 specialized as in large manufacturing and it 
 gives therefore a greater variety which means 
 increased interest on the part of the worker. 
 
 Some railroad instruction systems put the 
 apprentice as a helper in the erection gang with 
 a view of giving him a general idea of the work 
 first. This shows him where the different parts 
 belong, shows the necessity of good work in 
 different places and makes it much easier for 
 him to grasp the different kinds of work as he 
 comes to it. 
 
 This may not be feasible with operators hired 
 for one specific operation. But there can be no 
 doubt as to the advantage of giving the average 
 man or woman in the shop an opportunity to 
 know more of the product than they can see or 
 learn on their own operation. Many advocate 
 the teaching of several operations so as to allow 
 a change to relieve monotony. Some of the 
 large shops, however, such as the Packard Motor 
 Car Co. and others, have found that it pays 
 to spend a little time in training both men and 
 women before they go into the shop at all, and 
 this no matter what department they are to 
 go into in the shop. 
 
INSTRUCTION IN THE SHOP 63 
 
 The object of this training or vestibule school 
 is not only to make them somewhat familiar 
 with the work they are to do, but to give them a 
 sort of general knowledge of shop work as a 
 background on which to build their special train- 
 ing. And this training school stands ready to 
 assist any of the workers after they get out into 
 the shop. This gives the workers a feeling of 
 human interest and of sympathy which cannot 
 fail to have an effect in creating interest and 
 loyalty, which benefits both the worker and the 
 company. 
 
 THE PACKARD TRAINING SCHOOL 
 
 A description of this school and the methods 
 employed may be of service in suggesting modi- 
 fications to those who do not feel that this plan 
 exactly meets their requirements. It is, however, 
 well worth a careful study as it has worked out 
 very successfully in this case. 
 
 An extensive study of the methods of prelimi- 
 nary training necessary to fit women for work 
 in the various departments of the shop has been 
 made by the Packard Motor Car Co. of Detroit. 
 It may not be out of place to state that the same 
 methods are being used to train men of similar 
 limited experience, but as the women predomi- 
 nated in about the proportion of 190 to 30 when 
 
64 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 this was written, it may well be called a training 
 school for women. More men are now being 
 trained in the same way. 
 
 This school has been worked out as a part of 
 the employment-management system of the 
 Packard Co., which is in charge of E. A. Dryden, 
 the employment manager. The training school 
 was originated by the general superintendent, 
 D. G. Stanborough, and is under the direct super- 
 vision of W. J. Hammond. The school has a 
 faculty of 50, not including foremen, assistant 
 foremen and instructors, and is giving instruc- 
 tion in practically every line of work done in 
 the factory. 
 
 One thing that the ordinary woman now com- 
 ing into the factory does not realize is the impor- 
 tance of time. Everything connected with quan- 
 tity production or with the work done and all 
 operations provided are regular production work 
 that is run on the same premium times as in 
 the factory. This is done so that the students 
 will understand the premium system used through- 
 out the factory as well as realize that the ele- 
 ment of time must be considered in everything 
 they do. 
 
 Those in charge of the school have found by trial 
 that the best results are obtained on machine 
 and assembling work by having one instructor 
 
INSTRUCTION IN THE SHOP 65 
 
 to every three students and in some cases one 
 to every two, although on the elementary in- 
 struction one instructor to every six seems to 
 work satisfactorily. 
 
 After the students complete the elementary 
 instruction and pass the examination in it they 
 are furnished with two one-piece khaki uniforms, 
 which are charged to them the same as their 
 tools and which are returned to the company 
 stockroom upon leaving the employ of the com- 
 pany. The employees may launder these uni- 
 forms themselves or turn them into the garment 
 stockroom in exchange for clean ones, where they 
 will be laundered by the company at no expense 
 to the student. These garments are all kept 
 in the work-garment stockroom, where they are 
 fitted to the employees by expert fitters. 
 
 The class of girls working in the Packard shops 
 and in the school was exceptionally good, many 
 having high-school and college educations; there 
 are also a goodly number of schoolteachers who 
 deemed it then* patriotic duty to go into the 
 factory to work, thereby releasing men for 
 military service. 
 
 The school is equipped to turn out 120 students 
 a week and the company had approximately 
 2000 female employees working throughout its 
 factory. Each girl upon completing her course 
 
 
66 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 in the school is presented with a silver graduat- 
 ing pin, Packard trademark, and the words 
 " Packard Training School" on the pin. 
 
 The different courses taught were machining, 
 welding, assembling, tool-crib work, clerical, 
 inspecting, bench work, service-repair work, 
 stockkeeping and stock tracing. 
 
 THE STANDARD COURSE 
 
 The standard course in the preliminary, or 
 vestibule, training school varies from seven to 
 sixteen days according to the department to which 
 the learners are to be transferred for actual work. 
 A schedule of the training time for the different 
 departments is shown in Table I. 
 
 It will be noticed that in each case two days 
 are devoted to elementary inspection, this having 
 been found to be the best way of getting the 
 women accustomed to the shop surroundings 
 and the work to be done as well as teaching the 
 fundamentals of measuring. This preliminary 
 work is accomplished at suitable benches at one 
 end of the school shop, and everything is done 
 to make the beginners feel at ease in their new 
 surroundings. 
 
INSTRUCTION IN THE SHOP 67 
 
 TABLE I. TIME OUTLINED FOR STUDENTS IN GIRLS' PRE- 
 PARATORY SCHOOL AND DIFFERENT OCCUPATIONS TO WHICH 
 THEY CAN BE TRANSFERRED 
 
 Time 
 Occupation days 
 
 Engine-lathe operators : 
 
 Elementary inspection 2 
 
 Engine lathe 8 
 
 10 
 
 Milling-machine operators : 
 
 Elementary inspection 2 
 
 Plain milling machine ." . 6 
 
 8 
 Hand-screw machine operators 
 
 Elementary inspection 2 
 
 Hand-screw machine 7 
 
 9 
 
 Barber-Colman gear-cutting machine: 
 
 Elementary inspection 2 
 
 B-C gear-cutting machine 7 
 
 9 
 Hand-milling machine: 
 
 Elementary inspection 2 
 
 Hand-milling machine 6 
 
 8 
 Sensitive drill-press operators: 
 
 Elementary inspection 2 
 
 Sensitive drill press 5 
 
 
68 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 TABLE I. (Continued). 
 
 Time, 
 Occupation days 
 
 Heavy drill press: 
 
 Elementary inspection 2 
 
 Heavy drill press 5 
 
 7 
 Multiple and radial drill: 
 
 Elementary inspection 2 
 
 Multiple and radial 6 
 
 8 
 Tapping-machine operator : 
 
 Elementary inspection 2 
 
 Tapping machine 5 
 
 7 
 
 Toolgrinding-machine operators : 
 
 Elementary inspection 2 
 
 Universal grinding machine 6 
 
 8 
 External grinding-machine operators: 
 
 Elementary inspection 2 
 
 External grinding machine 5 
 
 7 
 Internal grinding-machine operators: 
 
 Elementary inspection 2 
 
 Internal grinding machine 5 
 
 7 
 Splining machine operators : 
 
 Elementary inspection 2 
 
 Splining machine 5 
 
 7 
 
INSTRUCTION IN THE SHOP 69 
 
 TABLE L (Continued). 
 
 Time, 
 Occupation days 
 
 Lo-swing operator : 
 
 Elementary inspection 2 
 
 Lo-swing lathe 7 
 
 9 
 Fox lathe operators : 
 
 Elementary inspection 2 
 
 Fox lathe 6 
 
 8 
 Potter & Johnson operators: 
 
 Elementary inspection 2 
 
 Potter & Johnson 7 
 
 9 
 J. & L. operators : 
 
 Elementary inspection 2 
 
 J. & L. machine 9 
 
 11 
 Broaching machine operators : 
 
 Elementary inspection 2 
 
 Broach machine 5 
 
 7 
 Inspection : 
 
 Elementary inspection 2 
 
 Practical inspection 8 
 
 10 
 Bench work: 
 
 Elementary inspection 2 
 
 Bench work 8 
 
 10 
 
70 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 TABLE I (Concluded). 
 
 Time, 
 Occupation days 
 
 Major assembling and dynamometer test : 
 
 Elementary inspection 2 
 
 Major assembling 7 
 
 ~9 
 Minor assembling: 
 
 Elementary inspection 2 
 
 Minor assembling 6 
 
 ~8 
 Welding: 
 
 Elementary inspection 2 
 
 Welding 14 
 
 16 
 Stock tracers : 
 
 Elementary inspection 2 
 
 Stock tracing 6 
 
 8 
 
 Tool-crib attendants: 
 
 Elementary inspection 2 
 
 Tool crib _6 
 
 ~8 
 Foremen clerk: 
 
 Elementary inspection 2 
 
 Clerking _5 
 
 7 
 Soldering: 
 
 Elementary inspection 2 
 
 Soldering 5 
 
 ~7 
 Stockroom clerk: 
 
 Elementary inspection 2 
 
 Premium and production clerks: 
 
 Clerking 10 
 
INSTRUCTION IN THE SHOP 71 
 
 The elementary inspection course outlined in 
 Table II, consists of learning the use of measur- 
 ing tools, such as scales, micrometers, calipers, 
 
 TABLE II. THE EIGHT STEPS IN TEACHING INSPECTION 
 
 Hours 
 Inspection Lesson No. 1 : 
 
 Measuring pins and block with scale and marking sizes 
 
 on blank blueprint 3 
 
 Inspection Lesson No. 2: 
 
 Measuring plate and holes in plate with scale and 
 
 calipers and marking sizes on blank blueprint 1% 
 
 Inspection Lesson No. 3: 
 
 Using scale for measuring plate and thread pitch gages 
 and scale for measuring threaded holes in plate and 
 
 marking sizes on blank blueprint. 1% 
 
 Inspection Lesson No. 4: 
 
 Using scale and thread pitch gages for measuring 
 threaded plugs and marking sizes on blank blue- 
 print 1% 
 
 Inspection Lesson No. 5: 
 
 Measuring pins with snap gages and marking sizes on 
 
 blank blueprint l^i 
 
 Inspection Lesson No. 6: 
 
 Measuring pins with snap gages and marking sizes on 
 
 blank blueprint 3 
 
 Inspection Lesson No. 7: 
 
 Measuring bevel gears with protractor, scale and 
 
 calipers and marking sizes on blank blueprint 1H 
 
 Inspection Lesson No. 8 : 
 
 Inspecting test shaft with gages used on all previous 
 inspection points; also marking all sizes and notes on 
 blank blueprint 4 
 
 Total.. . 18 
 
72 
 
 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 depth gages, bevel protractors, thread-pitch 
 gages, radius gages, etc., and the reading of 
 blueprints. This is accomplished by a combina- 
 tion of blueprints and the articles themselves, 
 some of these being shown in the illustrations. 
 
 WILLHINE HOLFS- 
 
 LENGTH OF PINS AS NUMBERED 
 
 FIG. 1. Teaching use of scale. 
 
 Fig. 1 shows a metal block with nine JHrin. 
 holes equally spaced and drilled to a uniform 
 depth, which the student is required to measure. 
 
 LEARNING TO MEASURE 
 
 Each block is fitted with pins of varying lengths, 
 the variation being in even eighths, sixteenths, 
 thirty-seconds and sixty-fourths. This lesson 
 involves only the use of the scale, as the diameter 
 of the pins is not considered, but only the various 
 
INSTRUCTION IN THE SHOP 
 
 73 
 
 dimensions of the block and the length of the 
 pin. A blueprint is provided with blank spaces 
 
 ":rr 
 
 DIAMETER OF HOLES AS NUMBERED 
 
 FIG. 2. Using inside calipers. 
 
 I B H * P* 
 
 Ic 
 
 FIG. 3. The thread-gage lesson. 
 
 for each measurement to be made, and this 
 answers the double purpose of making it easy to 
 
74 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 put down the answers and to familiarize the new 
 student with blueprints and drawings. 
 
 Lesson No. 2 involves the use of the scale as 
 before and also the inside caliper, as the dimension 
 of each hole is called for in the blank places 
 shown (see Fig. 2). The use of thread gages 
 comes next, these being simply for determining 
 the lead of the screw. This is shown in Fig. 3, 
 
 FIG. 4. Measuring plug thread gage. 
 
 the plate having four holes tapped straight 
 through and two holes with a tapered thread. 
 More complicated measurement is taken up in 
 lesson No. 4, which is a plug thread gage, Fig. 4, 
 and on which six separate measurements are 
 taken. A number of different thread plug gages 
 or plug thread gages are used in this lesson, a 
 blueprint providing for 11 such gages should it 
 be desirable to use this number. 
 
INSTRUCTION IN THE SHOP 
 
 USING THE MICROMETER 
 
 75 
 
 The blueprints for lessons 5 and 6 are shown in 
 Fig. 5. In addition to the blueprints there is a 
 block containing 10 sets of three plugs each, 
 every plug being numbered and lettered accord- 
 ing to the designation shown. The student here 
 
 FIG. 5. Measuring with micrometer. 
 
 learns to use the micrometer in a practical way. 
 One of the plugs of each set is the standard size 
 for that set, and the other two vary by a thousandth 
 of an inch in each direction; that is, one plug is a 
 thousandth of an inch too small and the other a 
 thousandth too large. In this way the student 
 learns the functions of the micrometer and how 
 to use it, becoming more or less familiar with it 
 
76 
 
 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 in a comparatively short time. The instructor 
 shows how the instrument is handled and how 
 the measurements are read, but does not inform 
 the student of the variations between the differ- 
 ent sizes of pins, so that it becomes a real test of 
 
 FIG. 6. 
 
 measurement with enough repetition to make her 
 fairly familiar with the micrometer. 
 
 Lesson 7 shows the use of the bevel protractor 
 as used in connection with bevel gears, and also 
 includes the use of the scale and caliper, all 
 dimensions being marked down on a blueprint, 
 Fig. 6, as before. 
 
INSTRUCTION IN THE SHOP 77 
 
 A COMBINATION MEASURING LESSON 
 
 The last lesson is a combination of all the others 
 and is a very complicated one for a beginner, as 
 can be seen from Fig. 7. This is measured in 39 
 places, and blanks are provided on the blueprint 
 for each dimension. Included in this is the meas- 
 urement of counterbores, tap holes, beveled-gear 
 
 FIG. 7. Last lesson for beginners. 
 
 angles, diameters at the bottom of grooves and at 
 the outside of shaft and collar, the width of collar 
 facing, radii, as well as the measurement of a 
 taper shaft and the length of various portions of 
 the shaft, which must check up with the over-all 
 total. It is safe to say that anyone who can 
 measure a piece of this kind correctly must have 
 some understanding of the use of the various 
 kinds of measuring instruments used in the shop. 
 
 
78 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 The work also gives a fair grasp of the necessity 
 of turning out accurate work on the machine and 
 in general familiarizes the learner with some of 
 the problems she will face when she begins 
 production work. 
 
 After the women have mastered all the les- 
 sons of elementary inspection they are put at 
 machines, also in the training school, and given 
 the necessary instruction before going out into 
 the shop on production work. The average time 
 required for the various machines is shown in 
 Table I, and it is gratifying to know that after 
 going into the shops nearly all of them are making 
 good. Where special coaching in certain lines is 
 necessary it is given by competent and sympa- 
 thetic instructors, and the foremen throughout 
 the plant are cooperating to the full. The in- 
 structors in the training school are mostly 
 women who have already become expert opera- 
 tors, some of these being shown in the headpiece 
 attending a class in shop mathematics which is 
 a part of the instructors' course. The instructors 
 are also taught the elements of mechanical draw- 
 ing so as to enable them to read blueprints 
 quickly and to explain them to the new students 
 who are constantly augmenting the ranks. 
 
 One of the most interesting sections of the 
 training school is that devoted to showing the 
 
INSTRUCTION IN THE SHOP 79 
 
 learners how to assemble and repair Liberty 
 motors. They take the engines down, examine 
 the various bearings and other parts, reassemble 
 them, learn how to set the timing gears for the 
 motor and for the machine gun and otherwise 
 to become familiar with the motor. They then 
 have the satisfaction of seeing the motor run, 
 this being proof that their assembling and timing 
 have been correctly and satisfactorily done. 
 
 The atmosphere of the place is very pleasant, 
 which no doubt has much to do with the general 
 success of the school itself. 
 
 WOMEN IN GARAGE WORK 
 
 In addition to training women for the Packard 
 shops they were also successfully utilized in the 
 service garages of some of the Packard distribu- 
 ting agencies. In looking after repair details, 
 from checking the cars into the station to that 
 of seeing that everything is right before they go 
 out. In the beginning they wash and polish cars, 
 clean motors and parts, keep track of stock, check 
 out tools and similar work, these often being done 
 much neater than they were ever done before. 
 They are also being prepared for heavier repair 
 work by brief tutoring or acting as substitutes 
 for skilled men. As a mechanic's helper a girl 
 usually becomes capable of disassembling cars 
 
80 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 and trucks or their units in two weeks' time. 
 The oiling and greasing, adjusting and repairing 
 of springs, snubbers and shock absorbers, tire 
 service and repairs, tramming and adjusting 
 front wheels, adjusting brakes, adjusting valves 
 and tappets, scraping and cleaning carbon, light 
 tuning up of motors and many similar tasks are 
 being satisfactorily mastered in from one to three 
 weeks' instruction. Other repairs, such as to 
 upholstery and radiators, are learned in a remarka- 
 bly short time. 
 
 General views of the school are shown in the 
 headpiece, where is the elementary inspection 
 room, and in Figs. 8 and 9 which show the mill- 
 ing machines, lathes and drilling machines. 
 Those in striped uniform are instructors, and a 
 class of these is shown in the tailpiece being 
 taught shop mathematics as a part of their course. 
 They become very proficient and are thoroughly 
 interested in their work. 
 
 AN INTENSIVE COURSE IN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 The shortage of skilled labor will never be 
 successfully overcome until a foresighted policy 
 has been adopted by all manufacturers. In 
 all the agitation regarding labor turnover and 
 amid all the accusations regarding the stealing of 
 men by competing employers we hear very little 
 
FIG. 8. The milling machine room. 
 
 FIG. 9. The lathes and drilling machines. 
 
 (Facing Page 80) 
 
FIG. 10. General view of school shop. 
 
INSTRUCTION IN THE SHOP 81 
 
 about efforts to increase the supply of trained labor. 
 The reaction from the old apprenticeship days 
 still exists in most places, and too many manu- 
 facturers are still perfectly willing to let the 
 other fellow train his men, depending upon in- 
 ducing them to leave later. There are of course 
 several notable exceptions to this, but they have 
 not been sufficiently numerous to greatly increase 
 our supply of skilled mechanics and they have 
 altogether failed to keep pace with the new 
 demands. The sudden expansion of the auto- 
 mobile industry inaugurated the first great 
 labor-stealing drive, and the demands of the 
 past three years have added fresh laurels to the 
 record of unstable labor. But in spite of all 
 the present needs comparatively few seem to be 
 seriously considering the training of new men 
 instead of devising ways and means of getting 
 them away from some other manufacturer. 
 Needless to say this does not add to the pro- 
 ductive capacity of the country, but actually 
 decreases it, besides adding to transportation 
 and housing difficulties. 
 
 Among those who are attacking the problem 
 from its proper end and who see the necessity 
 and the advisability of building up a working 
 force of their own is John C. Spence, superintend- 
 ent of the Norton Grinding Co., Worcester, 
 
82 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 Mass. Realizing the scarcity of skilled mechan- 
 ics throughout the country and the necessity of 
 increasing the supply in the shortest time, Mr. 
 Spence some time ago December, 1915, to 
 be exact organized a shop training school 
 with an eight-weeks' course, and it has proved 
 so successful that it has been enlarged several 
 times. 
 
 Realizing that the foreman in the modern busy 
 shop has little time for instructing green help 
 he started a separate training school, or shop, 
 comprising over 6000 sq. ft. in the gallery of 
 one of the buildings. It has its own toolroom, 
 wash-rooms and toilets, is entirely separate 
 from the rest of the shop and contains the 
 following equipment: 
 
 17 lathes 3 upright drilling machines 
 
 2 vertical milling machines 2 sensitive drilling machines 
 
 3 horizontal milling machines 1 floor grinding machine 
 1 hand-milling machine 2 arbor presses 
 
 3 universal grinding machines 1 straightening press 
 1 shaping machine 1 gas furnace 
 
 130 ft. of benches 
 
 A CLASS OF FORTY 
 
 This equipment handles 40 men, with the 
 necessary instructors, and usually graduates 
 about five men a week into regular shop work. 
 This has been so successful that over half of the 
 
INSTRUCTION IN THE SHOP 83 
 
 men so trained have been hired by other local 
 firms, which is one of the best proofs of their 
 desirability. Several of the boys with only 
 four months' training have been accepted in the 
 navy as second-class machinists. Another prod- 
 uct of the school shop is now foreman of the 
 toolmakers on the night shift and is one of the 
 best toolmakers in the shop. The interesting 
 part is that prior to December, 1915, he had no 
 shop training whatever. 
 
 As fast as the men are sufficiently trained they 
 are placed in positions that are open in the shop, 
 each foreman keeping the school informed as to 
 his needs. This does not mean that every stu- 
 dent serves a given length of time in the school, 
 as this depends upon the natural aptitude of the 
 man or boy and of course upon the kind of work 
 to which he is best adapted. In some instances 
 a few days have sufficed to give the necessary 
 start, while on the other hand some have been 
 kept in the school for several months. 
 
 The wages paid are attractive enough to secure 
 a good class of learners, and run from 17c. to 
 20c. an hour for boys of no previous experience 
 to 35c. an hour for men who have been in other 
 lines of work, such as driving grocery teams or 
 shipping work. Few men have been found who 
 did not earn up to their day rating after they 
 
 
84 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 got out into the shop and the average has been 
 about lOc. an hour over this rating This is 
 looked after very closely to know how the cost of 
 training works out and also to keep tabs on the 
 efficiency of the training itself. As each man goes 
 from the school into the shop notification is sent 
 to the cost department, which starts a special 
 record. This is maintained for six months in 
 order to find out the exact earnings of these 
 men and to see how they compare with skilled 
 men of long training when working at regular 
 shop work and at piece prices which have long 
 been established. The fact that Mr. Spence is 
 seeking to enlarge his school speaks volumes for 
 the results he has secured. 
 
 The success of this plan depends very largely 
 in obtaining the right kind of teachers and in 
 securing cooperation with the shop. The fore- 
 man must be shown that his work is not being 
 taken away, but rather that he is being relieved 
 of a "part of his duties so that he will have more 
 time for that which will make him more valuable 
 to the company the purely executive side of 
 the job. Then too the student must be made to 
 feel that the school is not simply a mill to grind 
 out as many men as possible for the sole benefit 
 of the shop, but he must be shown how it makes 
 him much more valuable to himself and to the 
 

 INSTRUCTION IN THE SHOP 85 
 
 % 
 
 community. To prevent the student becoming 
 discouraged after getting out into the shop the 
 chief instructor still continues to keep in touch 
 with him frequently for several weeks. To the 
 new man this is a source of encouragement when 
 things do not go exactly as he would like. 
 
 THE POINTS To BE REMEMBEEED 
 
 Mr. Spence sums up the situation in the fol- 
 lowing pithy paragraphs: 
 
 1. Few men have the faculty to teach. Often 
 the best workman is the poorest teacher. Hence, 
 it is easier to find one teacher and let him do the 
 bulk of this work. 
 
 2. The press of output prevents a foreman 
 from giving proper attention to beginners even 
 if the foreman happens to be a good teacher. 
 
 3. It does not pay to have a high-class execu- 
 tive foreman spend time on a beginner any more 
 than a professor of mathematics in a college 
 could afford to put his time into first-grade work. 
 In fact, in most cases he would probably lack 
 the real qualifications for first-grade work, i.e., 
 patience and human insight. 
 
 4. Unless the schooling is centralized the cor- 
 poration cannot readily carry out a fixed policy 
 with regard to teachings other than mechanical, 
 
86 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 i.e., questions pertaining to honesty of product, 
 citizenship, etc. 
 
 5. The influence on the future attitude of 
 these men toward each other and toward industry 
 depends largely on the impression made on 
 them at the start. This should be controlled 
 as far as possible. 
 
 6. In a school the beginner is sure of a 
 variety of work, whereas the tendency in the 
 shop is to give the beginner such a dose of what- 
 ever simple work he can do that he will not dis- 
 turb the foreman again for some time, or as the 
 boys say, enough to "hold him for a while." 
 
 7. The training probably costs less in the 
 school than in the shop. This is not always 
 clear as the true cost in the shop is almost always 
 buried in departmental expense, but it is there 
 just the same. 
 
 As there is nothing like ocular demonstration 
 we are very glad to present a number of 
 illustrations from the training school in this shop. 
 In a class picture taken not so very long ago, 
 the ages of the students ranging from 16 to 60 
 years, and the occupations previously followed 
 vary in about the same proportion as the ages 
 of the students vary. Some of the occupations 
 are shown in detail in the illustrations. 
 
 The businesslike appearance of the school shop 
 
FIG. 12. A 16-year old graduated in 9 weeks. 
 
FIG. 13. This boy became a tool maker. 
 
 (Following Fig. 12) 
 
FIG. 14. An ex-plumber who made good- 
 
 (Facing Page 87) 
 
INSTRUCTION IN THE SHOP 87 
 
 is shown in Figs. 10 and 11, the latter showing 
 assembling work of various kinds. Six weeks 
 before this was taken the last man at the bench 
 was running his own butcher shop, but the 
 uncertainty of the business in these times led him 
 to leave it for a chance to get into shop work. 
 
 SOME VISIBLE PROOFS OF SUCCESS 
 
 In Fig. 12 is a 16-year-old boy who after 
 spending nine weeks in the shop school could 
 handle very creditably any simple machine oper- 
 ation. He had no previous experience. Another 
 bright boy is seen in Fig. 13. This lad was 
 17 years old and spent eight weeks in the school, 
 with the result that he can now make such tools 
 as taper reamers from start to finish. Fig. 14 
 shows a man with no previous machine experience, 
 who had worked at plumbing and had driven a 
 team. With two weeks' training in the school 
 shop he was milling a grinding machine back-rest 
 body and can handle any similar work. 
 
 A more complicated job is shown in Fig. 15. 
 The man doing this work was formerly a crane 
 operator and spent five weeks in the school. 
 He can do many kinds of lathe work, and after 
 a total experience of 10 weeks he was earning 
 about 45c. an hour. A similar case is shown in 
 Fig. 16. This man has developed into a good 
 
88 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 turret-lathe operator after eight weeks in the 
 school and earns about the same as the man pre- 
 viously mentioned. 
 
 The next three illustrations, Figs. 17 to 19, 
 show three different types of work and men. 
 The first of these men was a shipping clerk who 
 had spent four weeks in the school; the next a 
 boilermaker who was in the school for seven 
 weeks, and the third had run a turret lathe on 
 shell work, but had never handled anything 
 else. He only required two weeks at the school. 
 
 The last two views, Figs. 20 and 21, show men 
 on grinding operations. The first had no previous 
 instruction and has spent five months in the 
 school. He has however acted as assistant 
 instructor, but now operates a Norton plain 
 grinding machine on production work. Perhaps 
 the greatest contrast is shown in Fig. 21. As 
 will be seen, the man is operating a Brown and 
 Sharpe universal grinding machine, and this 
 after a previous experience as a corset designer 
 and with only five weeks at the school. 
 
 COURSE GIVES FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 The notable feature of this school as compared 
 with most other short-term schools is that it does 
 not attempt to make specialists or operators 
 of one type of machine, but gives the foundation 
 
FIG. 15. Using the compound rest. 
 
 (Facing Page 88) 
 
FIG. 16. Now a good turret lathe operator. 
 
FIG. 17, Never handled machines before. 
 
 (Following Fig, 16) 
 
FIG. 18. A change from his boiler-making job. 
 
FIG. 19. A special shaper job. 
 
 (Following Fig. 18) 
 
FIG. 20. Plain grinding in quantity. 
 
 (Following Fig. 19) 
 
FIG. 21. Handling a Universal grinding machine. 
 
 (Facing Page 89) 
 

 INSTRUCTION IN THE SHOP 89 
 
 of an all-around course. It does not give the 
 practice that the old-fashioned apprenticeship 
 gave in four to five years, but it does give enough 
 of the fundamental knowledge of the different 
 types of machines to enable a fairly bright man or 
 boy to grasp the machine operations much more 
 readily when he gets out into the shop. It also 
 has the advantage to the Norton Grinding Co. 
 of giving it a supply of men which it can use in 
 different departments as occasion demands. 
 
 The time has gone by when this very important 
 subject can be longer neglected, and the stealing 
 of men from other factories is likely to be the 
 subject of drastic action in the very near future. 
 It has become absolutely necessary to train 
 men and women to increase the supply rather 
 than to waste time in devising ways and means 
 of luring them away from someone else. And 
 the time is probably not far distant when training 
 will be made compulsory as was done in Great 
 Britain. During the war it reached the point 
 where every firm (with a very few exceptions) 
 employing 300 or more workers had to organize 
 a portion of the shop as a training school for 
 improving the skill of unskilled workers. Smaller 
 factories were exempted, but arrangements were 
 made with neighborhood technical schools for 
 carrying on the work. This training had to be 
 
90 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 done whether the shop had a sufficient number of 
 trained men or not, so as to maintain the supply 
 of skilled labor in the kingdom. This arrange- 
 ment included the paying of the worker during 
 training on the same basis as that earned before 
 the training period. France had also made 
 training compulsory in all shops, which empha- 
 sizes the need for us to follow suit so as to have 
 a supply of workers. 
 
 In addition to these examples of what has 
 been accomplished in two machine shops in the 
 way of intensive training we must not overlook 
 the fact that a great number of preliminary 
 training schools have been successfully used in 
 various lines of war work. In addition to this 
 C. R. Dooley formerly of the Westinghouse 
 Company, did a wonderful work in the training 
 of soldiers at the various camps in the many 
 trades required by various branches of the army. 
 These men were given intensive courses at many 
 different schools and the results accomplished 
 in six to eight weeks that we shall have to revise 
 our ideas of the time required to give fundamen- 
 tal knowledge concerning the machine and 
 other trades. 
 
 This work emphasizes the fact that there is no 
 excuse for us to ever again have a shortage of 
 men skilled in various trades, as long as we have 
 
INSTRUCTION IN THE SHOP 91 
 
 man power available. We have added much to 
 our productive capacity and we can add more 
 each year by systematically training men and 
 women in the different trades. Every shop and 
 every community must do its share and we 
 shall do away with the cry of labor stealing while 
 at the same time we will increase the productive 
 capacity of our shops in various lines of work. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 NON-FINANCIAL INCENTIVES 
 
 To show the kind of work which has been done 
 by Robert B. Wolf, to whom reference has 
 already been made, the following liberal extracts 
 are made from a paper presented by him to the 
 American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 
 December, 1918. Mr Wolf is a member of this 
 society and is also manager of the Spanish River 
 Pulp & Paper Mills, Ltd. In his talk before the 
 Babson Conference Mr. Wolf advocated making 
 the men familiar with the cost of the various 
 operations, as it creates a desire to produce more 
 material, and this is of even more importance 
 than the quality of the equipment. 
 
 Another interesting feature of these records 
 has been to bring the efficiency of the poorer men 
 up to that of the best, the accomplishment of 
 which has done much to simplify the standardiz- 
 ing of wages on such classes of work. This has 
 not been done by lowering the production of the 
 best men, but by bringing all the others up to 
 their level. 
 
 92 
 
NON-FINANCIAL INCENTIVES 93 
 
 Mr. Wolf is a great believer in democracy in 
 the shop, and finds that by giving the men the 
 opportunity to exercise their minds in the right 
 direction and aiding them in every possible way 
 a great increase in efficiency is secured. His 
 experience has been that it is better to utilize the 
 men's brains in this respect than to have them 
 exercise them in finding ways of beating the boss. 
 
 An interesting phase of Mr. Wolf's talk was 
 that while the plant at Berlin was non-union the 
 three large ones in Canada were completely 
 unionized organizations, and he found no trouble 
 whatever in introducing the same method and 
 securing the same cooperation and efficiency. 
 He simply had to explain his proposed plan to 
 the organization leaders and to the men them- 
 selves to point out the advantages to all con- 
 cerned, after which he experienced no difficulty 
 in securing their cooperation. He finds that all 
 men are human and that they will respond if 
 they are treated right and convinced of a square 
 deal. 
 
 The A. S. M. E. paper follows: 
 
 1 ' The basis of all 'non-financial incentives ' is interest in 
 work. Interest in work implies a desire to produce actuated 
 by internal motives rather than external discipline. 
 
 "Production means creation and the industrial creative 
 function in man is a mental process and lies in his intelli- 
 
94 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 gent adaptation of means to ends. It is useless, therefore, 
 to look for real creative work unless the workman has a 
 chance to think and to plan; any other working environment 
 either fails to attract or actually repels the workman, and as 
 a consequence offers no incentive to increased effort. 
 
 "Work which does not call for thoughtful reflection, and 
 which uses only muscular effort, tends to draw man down 
 to the level of the brute and makes for industrial irre- 
 sponsibility and consequent social disorganization. The 
 unthinking man cannot be a responsible man. 
 
 ''It is the self-conscious faculty of man which distin- 
 guishes him from the animal and makes him above all a 
 creative center through which the universal life giving power 
 can deal with a particular situation in time and space. 
 
 "To use a homely illustration with which every one is 
 familiar the traffic at each crowded street crossing cannot 
 be regulated from the City Hall; it requires an individual 
 (the traffic policeman) in the congested spot to deal with 
 each particular situation as it arises, and upon his powers of 
 observation and selection depends the orderly flow of traffic. 
 
 "It is only through the individual life that the universal 
 life can act and therefore the universal is compelled to 
 evolve many individual lives if organization and order is to 
 replace the unorganized state represented by the purely 
 generic operation of natural law. 
 
 "The problem of social organization is, then, how to 
 organize society upon the basis of respect for the individual. 
 This is also the industrial problem as well, for industry in 
 the broadest sense is society in its highest form of activity 
 because it is essentially constructive and therefore creative 
 activity. 
 
 "It was an inevitable corollary to the universal plan of 
 creation that the individual life came into being not to 
 
NON-FINANCIAL INCENTIVES 95 
 
 create material substance as that had to be before individual 
 life could gain consciousness. The function of the indi- 
 vidual life, however, is to create by a thought process con- 
 ditions especially selected to produce results which nature 
 unaided would fail to produce. 
 
 CONFORMING TO NATURAL LAW 
 
 This is what the horticulturist does. His power lies in 
 his knowledge of natural law and his creations are made 
 possible because he conforms to the law. The uncultivated 
 orchard reverts to its original wild state when no longer 
 attended by man but increases in productiveness by con- 
 tinued thoughtful application of man's power of selection 
 and adaptation. 
 
 "It is by a similar process of conscious selection that such 
 devices as the steamboat, steam engine, electric generator, 
 and the telephone came into existence. They did not come 
 into being and never would have been created by the generic 
 operation of nature's laws. 
 
 "To illustrate further: the desire of the savage to cross a 
 body of water too wide for him to swim caused him to ob- 
 serve the floating of things which floated naturally. As a 
 result of this observation he built a raft; and finally, by 
 further observation, he discovered the principle that any 
 thing which, bulk for bulk, was lighter than the water it 
 displaced would float, and although he perhaps uncon- 
 sciously applied this principle, it is true that from its appli- 
 cation he evolved the canoe. 
 
 "Upon a higher plane, the modern electric generator 
 was evolved by observing that a wire passed at right angles 
 through a magnetic field would induce an electric current to 
 flow through it in a certain direction. 
 
96 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 "It was only by creating, through the application of the 
 personal factor, conditions by which this law could be ex- 
 panded that electricity was generated commercially. The 
 electric generator is nothing more than a large number of 
 such wires, insulated one from another, passing in and out 
 of a number of magnetic fields, plus a device for collecting 
 and conducting away the current generated. The im- 
 portant point to remember is that there never would have 
 been an electric generator without the introduction of the 
 individual personalities who literally created it. 
 
 "In this connection it is well to observe that all of our 
 creations, if they are to be successful, depend upon the 
 strict observance of the laws of nature. When we clearly 
 see man's place in the universal life movement we can under- 
 stand why it was that in the long process of evolution it 
 was inevitable that a being capable of measuring by re- 
 flection be evolved. The very word "man" is derived from 
 an Arian root meaning to measure. 
 
 "All this may seem at first sight far removed from the 
 problem of 'non-financial incentives/ but it seems to me it 
 is necessary before proceeding further to gain some concep- 
 tion of the reason for man's existence. The concrete illus- 
 trations of the operations of non-financial incentives will 
 then have greater meaning. 
 
 "Man, through the exercise of his intellectual faculties so 
 laboriously acquired through ages of slow evolution, liter- 
 ally reflects the universal creative process upon the plane 
 of the particular. There can be no organization of material 
 substance except through an individual who can observe 
 the laws inherent in the materials themselves. Then, by a 
 process of reflection, these materials can be organized into 
 forms which they could not take unaided by the individual 
 will or a power external to themselves. 
 
NON-FINANCIAL INCENTIVES 97 
 
 "To state the matter more concretely: man, we know, 
 cannot bring matter into existence, neither can he create the 
 force which resides in the physical elements he uses in the 
 day's work; what he does is to observe nature's forces in 
 action and then, having learned the laws, i.e., the reasons for 
 their action in any particular direction, he seeks for means 
 to make them express themselves more fully. 
 
 "This, of course, necessitates the creation of conditions 
 which do not occur spontaneously in nature. We have here 
 the beginning of what we call the artificial and it is signifi- 
 cant that the highest type of this form of creation, upon 
 a higher plane than the natural, is termed art. 
 
 "This creation of artificial conditions, which, taken all to- 
 gether, we call civilization, is, of course, the product of man's 
 organizing power. While self-consciousness, the power of 
 realizing the self as apart from the rest of the universe, 
 has been a human faculty for untold ages before the present 
 highly organized state of society had been attained, it is 
 nevertheless true that now, for the first time in the history 
 of the white race, we are confronted with the problem 
 of correcting the repressive or selfish character of civiliza- 
 tion so that it will serve the mass of humanity. If we fail 
 to accomplish this it will be destroyed by the same creative 
 power which brought it into existence. 
 
 MAKE ENVIRONMENT ATTRACTIVE 
 
 " We must leanrhow to change the industrial environment \ 
 from one which repels mankind to one which attracts. In 
 other words, the incentive to work must be inherent in the 
 nature of the work itself. 
 
 " Now what are the conditions which we must meet in the 
 industrial world to make work attractive? We have ample 
 evidence that increasing financial returns have failed to 
 
 7 
 
98 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 stimulate productivity and, on the other hand, the constant 
 demand for shorter hours and the increasing labor turnover 
 is proof that work in most of our industries not only does 
 not attract but actually repels the workman. We must, 
 therefore, look into the working conditions themselves for 
 the answer. This is the only scientific method of procedure. 
 "I would like to quote from a letter which was received 
 from a very intelligent labor leader recently, to show how 
 the mass of employees look at the problem and how urgent 
 is the need for its immediate solution if we are not to have 
 a greatly reduced production of the necessities of life 
 brought about by the concerted action of the workers 
 
 Is it not true that the industrial evolution which has brought 
 the trusts into existence has been the means of eliminating the 
 "human touch" in industry? During the days of small indus- 
 trial plants^ the employer and the employee, of course, were 
 really fellow-workmen. At the present time, however, the 
 employee has perhaps never seen any of the stockholders of 
 the industrial plant where he is employed. 
 
 You say that: Men can be productive only when they take 
 an interest in their work and they will not take this interest 
 unless those entrusted with the direction of their efforts realize 
 that they must teach them constantly how to exercise their 
 creative powers. 
 
 While I agree with everything you say relative to creative 
 work and have thought along these lines considerably myself, 
 still, is it possible in industries, as they are constituted at pres- 
 ent, to enable the average workingman to do creative work? 
 Isn't it true that industry is becoming so specialized that 
 the workman is no longer a creator? I realize that while it 
 may still be possible for the workman doing certain jobs in the 
 mill to do creative work, to a certain extent, still isn't the tend- 
 ency of modern industry more and more toward making the 
 workman simply an appendage of the machine? 
 
 In the paper you sent me, you described how you designed a 
 
NON-FINANCIAL INCENTIVES 99 
 
 plan for the men operating the hydraulic press to take an in- 
 terest in their work. This certainly is a practical illustration 
 of what can be done, and perhaps could be cited as a refuta- 
 tion of what I have just written above. I realize that there 
 may be certain jobs in the mill where the creative powers can 
 still be allowed to develop, and that the workman may be given 
 a chance to express his individuality, but the point I am trying 
 to bring out is that the tendency of modern industry is away 
 from creative efforts and gives the workman less and less 
 opportunity for individual development. 
 
 EFFECT OF MONOTONY 
 
 When I worked in the factories, which I did from the age of 
 12 to 25, one of the things I found the most dissatisfaction with 
 was the deadening sameness of the work. I never remember a 
 time, when working in the factories, that I became so interested 
 in my work that I did not long for quitting time to come. 
 
 After leaving the factory work I got a job with a building 
 contractor. As I became more proficient as a carpenter, I 
 have time and again been put doing certain work that was more 
 or less creative, in which I have become so interested that 
 I paid no attention to quitting time and have worked for 
 two or three hours after the time when I might have quit work. 
 There is joy in creative work. But, in my opinion, no matter 
 what schemes we will try to devise, modern industry is going to 
 tend more and more to make simply automatons of men. 
 
 I may say, however, that I could find very little to criticize 
 in either of your articles. You have demonstrated, from 
 practical experiments, things that I have often theorized about. 
 The conflict in industry during the next few years, in my opin- 
 ion, will be between the democratic and autocratic ideas. The 
 autocratic idea, I think, is best exemplified by the German 
 military machine. 
 
 "I was able to convince the writer of the letter from which 
 I have just quoted that creative work could be done to a 
 
100 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 great extent in modern industry, and, further, that this 
 could be accomplished, without any radical changes in 
 equipment, greatly to the advantage of both employer and 
 employee. 
 
 INDIVIDUAL PROGRESS RECORDS 
 
 "To do this, individual progress records are necessary so 
 that the workman can know from day to day how he is 
 improving in the mastery of the process. 
 
 "The first example is from that branch of the wood- 
 pulp industry known as the sulphite process and shows 
 a cooking chart which was designed to give the cook in- 
 formation about the reactions in the digesters in which the 
 wood chips are cooked in a 6 per cent, solution of sulphurous 
 acid partly combined with a lime base. 
 
 "The skill in cooking consists in the proper control of the 
 relief valve. 
 
 "Before the introduction of these cooking charts, all 
 this was left to the unaided judgment of the cook with 
 usually nothing to help him but a small hand thermometer 
 and a pressure gage. Of course, great variation in the 
 pulp was the result. The cooking charts, plotted by the 
 cooks themselves, however, helped greatly as they enabled 
 the quick visualization of the work. 
 
 ' 'Immediately after the introduction of these charts a 
 very marked increase in the uniformity of the pulp was 
 noticed, and the cooks, while at first opposed to the new 
 method of "cooking with a lead pencil" as they called it, 
 soon learned to like their work much better for the reason 
 that they now had some way of visualizing the work in its 
 entirety. In addition to more uniform quality of the pulp, 
 the yield from a cord of wood increased something over 5 
 per cent. 
 
NON-FINANCIAL INCENTIVES 101 
 
 CoNTINUOUi PROGRESS RECORD 
 
 "We soon found that it was necessary to give some sort 
 of continuous-progress record if we were to keep up the 
 interest in the work, because no man could carry in his mind 
 anything but a general impression of his progress from day to 
 day. Progress records measure the man's increasing 
 mastery of his work, and we feel that it is one of the moral 
 obligations of the management to keep such records for the 
 individual workman. Without these records men will not 
 think of improvements in the process and they cannot be 
 blamed for becoming indifferent. How long, for instance, 
 would a superintendent or manager retain his interest in the 
 economical operation of his plant if his cost sheets were 
 withheld? We, as executives, must have quantity, quality, 
 and economy records, otherwise our interest soon lags. 
 Why, then, should we expect the workman to be interested 
 when he is not furnished with a record which at least re- 
 flects one of these elements? 
 
 "Such records can be grouped, under three main headings: 
 quantity records, quality records and economy or cost 
 records. Quality records, which occupy the middle position, 
 are, perhaps, of the greatest importance for they bring the 
 individual's intelligence to bear upon the problem and as a 
 consequence, by removing the obstacles to uniformity of 
 quality, remove at the same time the obstructions to in- 
 creased output. The creative power of the human mind is, 
 however, not content simply to produce the best quality 
 under existing conditions of plant operation. The desire 
 to create new conditions for the more highly specialized 
 working out of the natural laws of the process, demands 
 expression and this expression at once takes the form of 
 suggestions for improvements in mechanical devices. 
 
102 LABOR 'lUR'NOVER 
 
 "This desire contains within it the germ of economic 
 thought which will unfold and express itself eventually in a 
 request for cost records, and the organization that neglects 
 its opportunity to satisfy this desire is overlooking one of the 
 great avenues leading toward intelligent productive effort. 
 
 "Because of the interrelation of quality, quantity and 
 economy records, any complete record of individual prog- 
 ress must, of course, take them all into account. However, 
 as this is not always practical we have at least one of three 
 ways of measuring progress always open to us. 
 
 PROGRESS RECORDS 
 
 "We keep a continuous-progress record of the work which 
 is mainly one of quality. Most of our records refer to the 
 quality of the work performed; in other words, the nearness 
 to which the workman approaches the ideal standards 
 which he has helped to form. The democratic cooperative 
 forming of these standards by the joint work of the trained 
 technician and the practical workman is absolutely essential, 
 otherwise continuous progress will not be made. The 
 whole plan must be really educational in nature and to be so 
 the records must record the natural laws of the process and 
 the individual's degree of control of forces in the material 
 elements that he is using. The more factors that can be 
 recorded, the greater the interest in the work. The reason 
 for this is obvious. 
 
 "Suppose there are nine men cooking. These men are 
 posted in the order of seniority, with the highest monthly 
 record on top. There are three foremen at the top of the 
 record. Each of these foremen has three cooks under him 
 and their standing is made up by taking the average records 
 of the men under them. In this way we are enabled to get 
 
NON-FINANCIAL INCENTIVES 103 
 
 not only the individual records of the men, but the group, or 
 team-work records, as well. 
 
 "The temperature record is obtained by taking half- 
 hourly readings from the recording-thermometer chart, 
 upon which a standard temperature curve has been plotted, 
 calling each reading which happens to fall on the standard 
 line 100, and a reading 20 deg. either side of the standard line 
 0. This means that for each degree off of the standard, 
 5 points are deducted from the progress record. 
 
 "The time record is obtained by calling a certain time of 
 cooking 100 and taking off on each digester cooked one point 
 for each minute above or below this standard. 
 
 "The blowing record is obtained by calling 30 Ib. pressure 
 100 (most of the cooking being done at a pressure of 75 Ib. 
 per sq. in.) and 60 Ib. 0, the idea being to get the pressure as 
 low as possible before blowing the digester. 
 
 "By an arrangement of this sort, by simply changing the 
 relative value of the different factors, it is possible to empha- 
 size any particular phase of the work. The men willingly 
 pay the greatest attention to the factor that has the greatest 
 value because it gives them the better record and because 
 they know the reason for the change. For instance, if it is 
 desired to emphasize quantity, we give a larger value to the 
 time record and a lesser value to the temperature record. 
 Production is then somewhat increased at the expense of 
 quality. 
 
 "I could give many illustrations similar to the one just 
 given of our cooking operations. I will give only one final 
 illustration of how economy progress records meet with 
 equally great response. In the plant where this system was 
 developed were employed over 1200 men and perhaps half 
 of these men had individual progress records and the rest 
 came under some sort of group-progress record. Invariably 
 
104 
 
 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 the records proved themselves to be an incentive to greater 
 productivity. 
 
 COST RECORDS OF WORK 
 
 "In Fig. 22 is shown a foreman's detail job sheet which 
 indicates the method for giving our maintenance foremen 
 
 FORMAN'S DETAIL JOB SHEET. 
 
 Name of Job In&att 2-35 Hp. Motors on Coarse Screen* 
 
 Electrical Dept - Porrtr Wring. 
 
 Worked < 
 
 Labor Cost-to Date_ 
 MaterialCoffrtoOate 
 Total Cost to Dote __ 
 
 labor Coat Yesterday _ 
 Material Co&t Yesterday 
 
 Total Cost Yesterday 
 
 750 
 
 1.21 
 
 DETAIL OF MATERIAL. USED YESTERDAY. 
 
 ITEMS. 
 
 t " *Lpnq- Turn Elbows, 
 4% it. Solder, 
 4-ti'Tupt E Condule-rs. 
 4-l(*4Holt Porcelain*. 
 I Roll Oiled Lined, 
 l-ffoll Friction Tape, 
 G-IW Amp. TSrmlnafg, 
 
 0.61 
 A?3. 
 2.02 
 
 FIG. 22. Foreman's job sheet. 
 
 cost records of their work. It is obviously a difficult matter 
 when dealing with maintenance and construction work to 
 give quality or quantity records as the work varies so much 
 from day to day, so the only kind of records we could give 
 the men were records of cost. The original suggestion to 
 give these records grew out of the fact that we gave to each 
 
NON-FINANCIAL INCENTIVES 105 
 
 operating department head a complete cost of operating his 
 department for which he was held responsible. 
 
 "As soon as he began to realize this responsibility, 
 because all the repair materials were charged to him, he at 
 once began to make intelligent criticism of the engineering 
 department, and especially was he critical of the mainte- 
 nance foreman if he was wasteful in the use of materials. 
 As a result of this, the maintenance foremen asked the 
 master mechanic if they could not have job costs showing 
 how economically they were doing their work as they had 
 no idea of the value of materials that they were using. 
 The foreman's detail job sheet shown is the result of this 
 request. It will be noted that the job is fully described, 
 the total cost for labor and material to date is given, 
 as well as the cost of labor and material for yesterday. 
 Then below is listed the itemized cost of all materials used. 
 
 "The men soon became educated as to the value of the 
 materials they were using and we noticed a great change in 
 the amount of waste; in fact, we had frequent cases where 
 maintenance foremen would bring scales into the mill to 
 make sure that the storehouse was giving them full measure 
 of materials and we were soon obliged to get up a system of 
 giving credit for material returned to the storehouse in 
 order to help foremen keep down their job costs. This was 
 in no sense a form of contract system, for all of our main- 
 tenance and construction men were paid by the hour and did 
 not receive any more money for doing a job economically. 
 
 "The concrete results obtained by giving the cost sheets 
 to the department heads and job costs to the maintenance 
 foremen. 
 
 " In none of this work did we pay bonuses to a superin- 
 tendent, department head or workman; our salaries and 
 
106 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 wages were high, but payments were all on a monthly, 
 weekly, or hourly basis. The increased effort therefore 
 came entirely from a desire within the individual to be 
 productive. This sort of creative effort produced great 
 changes in operating conditions; we increased our yearly 
 production from 42,000 tons to 111,000 tons without adding 
 to the number of digesters for cooking the pulp, or wet 
 machines for handling the finished product and we changed 
 our quality from the poorest to the very best. 
 
 VALUABLE SUGGESTIONS FROM MEN 
 
 "Due to the intelligent suggestion which came from our 
 men all over the plant we were able to make very radical 
 changes in the manufacturing processes. Entirely new 
 methods of preparing our wood, making acid, bleaching, etc., 
 were created, all of which we paid for out of the earnings. 
 
 "I maintain that this was all the result of the freedom 
 our men were experiencing because they were working in an 
 environment which stimulated thinking. They had ample 
 opportunity constantly to increase their knowledge of the 
 underlying natural laws of the process, and were therefore 
 able to realize the joy which comes from a conscious mastery 
 of their part of the process. 
 
 "This freedom to express one's individuality in construct- 
 ive work according to law, is the only real freedom, for 
 freedom unrestrained by a consciousness of the universality 
 of natural law leads to anarchy. 
 
 "We should never lose sight of the fact that the degree 
 of conscious self-expression which the workman can attain 
 is in direct proportion to the ability of the organization to 
 measure, for his benefit, the impress of his personality upon 
 it. The most democratic industrial plant therefore is the 
 one which permits the fullest possible amount of individual 
 
NON-FINANCIAL INCENTIVES 107 
 
 freedom to each member, irrespective of his position and at 
 the same time is so sensitively adjusted that it reflects 
 immediately the effects of his actions. If his actions result 
 in injury to others he will see that as a part of the whole he, 
 himself, must also suffer. 
 
 "Man is not an animal, but a free self-determining mental 
 center of consciousness whose reason for existence is that the 
 universal life can deal with a particular situation in time and 
 space, and, by this means, be enabled to evolve a material 
 universe organized to express the one great individual life 
 of which we are all a part. 
 
 "In conclusion let me say that I am well aware that to 
 some of you this may seem like pure philosophical specula- 
 tion far removed from the practical affairs of every day life. 
 I have said nothing however that I cannot back up by any 
 number of additional illustrations and my hope is that the 
 examples given will stimulate others to make similar in- 
 vestigations, so that we can fulfill our mission in this country 
 by evolving an industrial philosophy which will have for its 
 ultimate aim the continuous unfoldment of the latent powers 
 in man. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 THE EMPLOYMENT MANAGER 
 
 One of the results of the changing attitude 
 regarding the importance of labor and the part 
 which it plays in economical production, is the 
 increased importance of the employment mana- 
 ger. For it is coming to be recognized that the 
 proper selection of workers, the placing of them 
 in their proper position in the shop, the pre- 
 vention of personal grudges against individuals, 
 the retention of workers as long as it is mutu- 
 ally advantageous, play a much greater part in 
 economical production than we formerly realized. 
 
 The best results require a man or woman of 
 broad judgment, of sympathetic understanding, of 
 tact in dealing with people of various kinds and 
 other qualities which tend to promote harmony 
 all through the plant. The employment manager 
 of the future will probably handle what we 
 formerly called welfare work as well as commu- 
 nity relations, in addition to the work of " hiring 
 and firing," as it is commonly called. 
 
 108 
 
THE EMPLOYMENT MANAGER 
 
 109 
 
 Perhaps the qualifications for such an employ- 
 ment manager can be better described by quot- 
 ing Philip Brasher, himself an employment 
 manager of wide experience and at present with 
 
 
 EMPLOYMENT 
 
 COURTEOUS RECEPTION 
 PERSONAL INTERVIEW 
 PROPER NOTIFICATION 
 FAIR INTRODUCTION 
 
 
 
 i 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 PERSONAL QUALIFICATIONS 
 EXPERIENCE 
 EDUCATION 
 
 HEALTH 
 PERSONALITY 
 ABILITY 
 CHARACTER 
 
 REMUNERATION 
 
 SALARY MINIMUM KATE 
 WEEKLY RATE PROFTT SHARING 
 CAY RATE CO-OPERATIVE 
 PIECE RATE BUYIN6 
 BONUS SAVINGS PLAN 
 
 SUPERVISION 
 
 HARMONY 
 RTSPONSIBIUTY 
 STEADY EMPLOY- 
 MENT 
 
 1 
 
 . 
 
 
 | 
 
 ENVIRONMENT 
 
 MINIMUM INTERFERENCE 
 CONGENIAL ASSOCIATES 
 CHEERFUL SURROUNDINGS 
 
 
 EQUIPMENT 
 
 SPACE. MEN 
 MACHINES TOOLS 
 
 PROTECTION 
 
 FIRE PERSONAL- 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 EDUCATION 
 
 ^&^s^ N 
 
 "SSffi&ggr 
 
 UBRAR^ CTUR C S HARTS 
 
 RECREATION 
 
 ROOMS 
 ATHLETICS ASSOCIATIONS 
 
 VBt&s&amh 
 
 DINING FACILITIES 
 
 RETENTION 
 
 VISITATION 
 
 PWOMOnONS 
 SATISFACTION 
 
 PENSIONS 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 PRODUCTION 
 
 QUALITY 
 QUANTITY 
 INCREASED 
 EFFICIENCY 
 
 FIG. 23. Work of the employment manager at the Winchester 
 Plant. 
 
 the Chile Exploration Co. in that capacity. 
 It is needless to say that no employment manager 
 can be successful unless the general manager of 
 the company is in sympathy with modern methods 
 of dealing with labor. 
 
110 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 THE EMPLOYMENT MANAGER 1 
 
 "At the present time when the subject of employment is 
 so much in the public mind it would seem worth while to 
 consider the personality of the employment manager. 
 To anyone who has devoted thought to the question it is 
 rather astonishing that American industry, which has spent 
 so much effort on organizing efficient purchasing depart- 
 ments and testing laboratories for materials, has absolutely 
 ignored until recently the acquisition of proper human 
 material which after all is the backbone of any successful 
 organization. The chart, Fig. 23, is used by L. 0. Pethick, 
 director of personnel of the Winchester Repeating Arms Co., 
 and indicates the varied activities in personnel work that 
 the employment manager should be held responsible for. 
 The establishment by the Government during the war 
 of schools for employment managers and the establish- 
 ment of a course at New York University and elsewhere 
 show that the lack of trained men in this line is at last 
 beginning to be appreciated. 
 
 BROAD EXPERIENCE NECESSARY 
 
 "It is obvious that the man whose duty is to select 
 other men and women for a certain task must have broad 
 experience and education to make him competent to fill his 
 position. If it is important to have a highly paid specialist 
 to superintend the buying of a million dollars' worth of goods 
 yearly or to pass upon the proper design of a piece of ma- 
 chinery, how much more important is it that the man se- 
 lected to buy a million dollars' worth of human nature in the 
 course of a year must be properly equipped by nature and 
 training to give the best results. 
 
 JBy Philip Brasher, Employment Manager Chile Exploration Co., in the 
 
 American Machinist , 
 
THE EMPLOYMENT MANAGER 111 
 
 "Take the training of the employment manager first. 
 In my opinion no one can properly hire men who has not 
 done a great deal of really laborious work himself. By 
 this I mean actual physical labor of various kinds with 
 his hands. A man should have had a general experi- 
 ence of at least ten years, and better twenty, if that is 
 possible. He should also have a good fundamental educa- 
 tion, and if he has a higher education so much the better; 
 that is, if it does not result in his acquiring too many theo- 
 retical ideas which sometimes are the curse of a "college 
 education." In addition to this the employment manager 
 should have traveled and served an apprenticeship in dif- 
 ferent localities and, if possible, in several countries. In 
 other words, he should have broad education and experience 
 upon which to build before he is considered to be competent 
 to pass judgment upon others. These considerations, I 
 believe, make the employment manager's job an ideal one for 
 an older man. 
 
 "The responsibility of an employment manager is seldom 
 appreciated by those who have not a clear understanding 
 of the situation. Many times a day he has the power to 
 make or break some individual, and this is something which 
 should always be kept in mind. An employment office 
 cannot be conducted as an eleemosynary institution, but 
 a courteous reception and hearing and a suggestion as to 
 some place where immediate employment may be secured 
 if the services of the applicant cannot be used by the em- 
 ployment manager's concern are part of the modern plan. 
 There is enlightened self-interest in this. 
 
 THE IDEAL EMPLOYMENT MANAGER 
 
 "Now to get down to the real foundation of the mat- 
 ter, namely, the inherent traits and qualifications that 
 
112 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 make up the personality of the employment manager. 
 No matter what education, no matter what experience, 
 no matter what training he might have, unless he be the 
 right type of man he cannot render satisfactory service. 
 I believe and please keep in mind that I am stating 
 my idea of the ideal employment manager, not the one 
 you are apt to secure, but the one you should aim to get 
 that he should have an unlimited stock of hardheaded 
 common sense, which would eliminate any tendency toward 
 the impractical no matter how splendid the underlying 
 motive. He should be forceful, keen and courageous, be- 
 cause no mind can be too keen for the job, and no man who 
 is well balanced can be too courageous to meet the incessant 
 opposition that will be occasioned by the naturally con- 
 servative policy to be found in most old-line companies. 
 His decisions should be made after due deliberation based 
 on a complete knowledge of business in general and his own 
 organization in particular. He should have the foresight 
 to see what the result of his decisions is going to be. He 
 should have an organizing, constructive type of mind, 
 and these qualities will be tested by his choice of the imme- 
 diate assistants upon whom he must depend for a great 
 deal of the actual selection of employees. He should be 
 able to appreciate the commercial and financial necessities 
 of the situation, because the first principle of business is 
 that it should pay. He ought to be democratic, responsive, 
 enthusiastic and persuasive, but absolutely just and con- 
 scientious. He should be sympathetic and observant, a 
 shrewd student of human nature, with intuition highly de- 
 veloped. These qualities, I believe, are essential. 
 
 "His experience should have taught him the general 
 classes into which men and women naturally fall: 
 
 "First Organizers. Those capable of opening up new 
 
THE EMPLOYMENT MANAGER 113 
 
 work; starting something out of routine; with plenty of 
 initiative, etc. 
 
 "Second Administrators. Those capable of taking hold 
 after organization has been completed and running their 
 jobs with the maximum of conscientious care. 
 
 "Third Detail men. Those lacking qualities of leader- 
 ship. 
 
 "Fourth Ineligibles. Those not suited to the organi- 
 zation for one reason or another. 
 
 "The man who takes an organizer and places him in an 
 administrator's position is not only incompetent in his own 
 job, but eventually causes the one so placed to fail and pos- 
 sibly to fail miserably later on. Therefore his responsibility 
 is twofold to his employers and to those whom he places. 
 He will always have the satisfaction of knowing that no 
 matter how much he may improve the job will always remain 
 bigger than he. 
 
 SHOULD KNOW WORK AND MEN 
 
 "The employment manager must know not only the 
 work and how it should be done, but also the men in charge 
 of the work. If, for instance, the head of a department 
 has a prejudice against red-headed men it is wisdom to 
 refrain from sending him any until you have won his con- 
 fidence to such an extent that he would take a green-headed 
 one if you said he would make good. 
 
 "At the present time, with the demand for efficient 
 service as great and vital as it is, it seems to me that too 
 much thought and effort cannot be put into obtaining 
 the proper men to select the personnel. 
 
 "In conclusion, I shall quote something written by 
 John M. Siddall which might almost be called 'The Employ- 
 ment Manager's Creed:' 
 
 8 
 
114 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 "A man like Schwab, by finding and encouraging men 
 and by inspiring their loyalty, carries himself and all his 
 associates on to a success which none of them could achieve 
 alone. He establishes a long battle line of organization in 
 which there are great numbers of men intelligently used and 
 genuinely appreciated by a commander who realizes that 
 his own success is manifolded by the work of his associates. 
 
 "In business it is not the individual producer who gets 
 the biggest or surest rewards. It is the organization 
 builder. Any man, no matter how small his business, 
 ought to recognize that fact. Unless an employer is in- 
 terested in finding, training, holding and dividing with 
 good men, the business he is engaged in can never grow. 
 It will remain the work of one man, and the work of one man 
 is bound to be limited in size and profits. 
 
 "You may think that you are in the shoe business or 
 the shirt business or the furniture business; but you are 
 mistaken. After all is said and done, we are all in the same 
 business the man business no matter what we make or 
 sell. Some of the big fellows see that point more clearly 
 than the rest of us do, and multiply their profits and power 
 accordingly." 
 
 The progressive employment manager can do 
 much to help secure amicable relations with labor 
 in the years to come. And this is absolutely 
 necessary to our future prosperity. We cannot 
 meet the competition of the world with labor 
 antagonistic and sullen because it believes it has 
 been unfairly treated. The soldier who has 
 braved the hardships of war in his fight for 
 democracy is not coming back to this country 
 
THE EMPLOYMENT MANAGER 115 
 
 to walk the streets looking for work or to accept 
 pay which barely keep body and soul together. 
 The standards of employment insisted upon as 
 necessary for war work will not be discarded in 
 times of peace, without a costly struggle which 
 none can afford. 
 
 The employment manager must have a position 
 which enables him to consult freely with the 
 general manager. In some of the larger concerns 
 he is now made a vice-president of the company, 
 the same as the vice-president of manufacturing. 
 He must be big enough for the importance of his 
 work and be recognized as filling an important 
 position. 
 
 There seems to be little doubt that higher 
 standards of living means increased production 
 in most cases. This in turn means an increase 
 in consuming power, for labor is the great con- 
 sumer in any country. We are beginning to 
 realize that it is time to apply the same business 
 principles in labor problems as with other con- 
 sumers of our products. 
 
 Some employers have felt themselves person- 
 ally aggrieved at the high wages which labor has 
 demanded and received during the war. Some 
 have gone so far as to say they will get even 
 when jobs are less plentiful so that men will 
 have to accept their terms or starve. A little 
 
116 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 careful thought will, however, show that the 
 only real injury has been to their pride and not 
 to their pocket book, as in nearly every case the 
 increased cost of labor has been passed on to ^he 
 consumer. The employer who adopts the starva- 
 tion policy is playing with fire and should re- 
 member the words of the President in addressing 
 Congress regarding the terms of the armistice: 
 
 "Hunger does not breed reforms; it breeds madness and 
 all the ugly distempers that make ordered life impossible." 
 
 No far-sighted business man is going to run the 
 risk of breeding such madness in his plant or in 
 his community. The lives of those he loves are 
 too precious to take any such chances. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 LATEST IDEAS OF LEADING MEN 
 
 As an indication that there is a new conception 
 of business and one which must add new phases 
 to the problems of work management, I am quot- 
 ing liberally from some of the well-known speakers 
 at the last conference of the Chamber of Com- 
 merce of the United States at Atlantic City, 
 N. J. in December, 1918. 
 
 The opening address of the President of the 
 Chamber of Commerce of the United States, 
 Harry A. Wheeler, contained the following con- 
 cerning the question of labor and its problems in 
 managing industry. 
 
 "We are facing many vital changes in the controlling 
 power of the political and economic machinery of the world, 
 power which if unrestrained will bring much grief before 
 it settles down to a sober and intelligent recognition of its 
 ability to impose harm as well as good. 
 
 "In our own country the control of our National destinies 
 is sure to be vested in something else than the power of 
 wealth or the intimidation of possession of great resources. 
 In short, the less fortunate in birth or possession, being 
 numerically superior, will not permit a revision to some of 
 the methods of the past, nor is there any reason to believe 
 
 117 
 
118 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 that those who occupy the position of the more fortunate in 
 material things will be less anxious to assist in developing 
 a program that will embody the best provisions for co- 
 operation and will eliminate class and caste in our internal 
 personal relationships. 
 
 "It is only by sober consideration of this factor that 
 we are going to be able to negotiate this period of reconstruc- 
 tion without the disturbance which would destroy much of 
 the satisfaction we have gained out of the experience on the 
 other side, and as an example to the boys when they come 
 home of how we have acquired a new solidarity and an 
 understanding of the value of coSperation. Even in those 
 relationships formerly regarded as subject only to conflict 
 of interest. 
 
 " Do I think that the problem that may confront us with 
 respect to labor's attitude or that may confront them with 
 respect to our attitude will be one where the lion and the 
 lamb will lie down together? I do not; but I call to your 
 attention and to them that the lion and the lamb must 
 browse in a pasture that is also occupied by others and the 
 lion and the lamb by their conflict should not and shall not 
 so far disturb the relationship of those others as to make the 
 pasture an uninhabitable place." 
 
 Frank H. Taylor, General Manager of the 
 S. S. White Dental Co., whose experience in work 
 management extends to both sides of the Atlantic 
 said: 
 
 "We, as manufacturers, have a deep responsibility in 
 respect to our employees. The cost of living cannot be 
 suddenly reduced. The immediate curtailment of wages, 
 would therefore be most unfortunate and while our people 
 
LATEST IDEAS OF LEADING MEN 119 
 
 are working out their personal problems, we should put all 
 of our force into plans to maintain their wage rates. 
 
 "There is concern in my mind that when prices must 
 finally be lowered, we shall regulate the pay of our people 
 upon some new basis, and having this in mind, I will throw 
 out briefly an idea that is worth thinking about. 
 
 "My proposal is that we all try to establish in our minds 
 a minimum or basic wage, which will apply to those who 
 give us not better than the average service, and that in 
 addition the service rendered by our people individually. 
 I want the willing worker to be well paid for all the service 
 he renders that is above and beyond what is received from 
 those who get the minimum or basic pay. 
 
 " May I add in all seriousness that in addition to the wages 
 which I want to see maintained, we owe our employees an 
 opportunity to secure a business education while they are 
 in our employ. 
 
 "The plans which will accomplish the above ends must be 
 made and carried out by ourselves, because we know the 
 business problems better than outsiders can know them. 
 Even Government officials who have the best possible 
 intentions cannot know our problems intimately. 
 
 The address of Mark L. Requa, General 
 Director of the Oil Division, United States 
 Fuel Administration, contained the following: 
 
 "If I were to define the 'spirit of the times' as applied to 
 the management of any of our great corporations, I should 
 say that it meant a broad humanitarian view of social 
 problems, a sympathetic interest in the welfare and aspira- 
 tions of the masses, a constant and intelligent effort to 
 abolish the poverty line by helpful suggestion and wise 
 
120 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 counsel, a realization that the old order passeth, that labor 
 is entitled to a just wage, rational hours, decent working 
 conditions, and that capital is entitled to a profit 
 commensurate with the hazard of the particular industry in 
 question, and that both must work in harmony if either 
 is to survive. 
 
 "The official who looks to the balance-sheet of his com- 
 pany as the only satisfactory answer to his stewardship is 
 shortsighted and has but faint conception of the real nature 
 of his trust. His is a far more important task. In the case 
 of the great corporation he is in truth the trustee for the 
 people, administering affairs that while perhaps not legally 
 so construed are as truly public-service corporations as 
 are our railways. 
 
 "Radicalism runs riot among those who have nothing to 
 lose; the teaching of thrift, therefore, is but a method of 
 conquering radicalism. In self-defense, if nothing more, 
 capital should be striving and planning to make every citizen 
 a property owner, to make every one of us hold immediate 
 and personal interest in the stability of our Government by 
 making all of us have something at stake. 
 
 "Trade-unionism has come into existence because man- 
 kind was forced to collective bargaining in self-defense. 
 That there are bad leaders of unions is no more an excuse 
 for condemning all unions than is the condemning all 
 corporations because of the acts of the few. Public senti- 
 ment must see to it, in the future, that the one is execrated 
 equally with the other; and if so, neither can long survive. 
 
 "In speaking as I have I realize that there will be many 
 in the ranks of both labor and capital who will refuse to 
 admit the possibility of such a program succeeding. It 
 is to those we must address our efforts. The task will not 
 be easy ; it will take years to accomplish; but in the end it can 
 
LATEST IDEAS OF LEADING MEN 121 
 
 be made to succeed. It is but one step in the evolution 
 the world that began with the dawn of civilization and will 
 continue while civilization endures. 
 
 Here are a few interesting extracts from the 
 address of John D. Rockefeller on Representa- 
 tion in Industry: 
 
 "Obviously the day has passed when the conception of 
 industry as primarily a matter of private interest can be 
 maintained. To cling to it is only to lay up trouble for 
 the future and to arouse antagonism. In the light of the 
 present, every thinking man must adopt the view that the 
 purpose of industry is to advance social well-being rather 
 than primarily to afford a means for the accumulation of in- 
 dividual wealth. It must be borne in mind, however, 
 that industry cannot be successfully carried on unless not 
 only the community and the workers are adequately served 
 but those whose money is invested are enabled to realize 
 a just return. 
 
 "Who are the parties to industry? They are four in 
 number Capital, Management, Labor and the Community. 
 Capital is represented by the stockholders and is usually 
 regarded as embracing Management. Management is, 
 however, an entirely separate and distinct party to industry 
 it consists of the executive officers, who are the administra- 
 tors of the industry and who bring to it technical skill and 
 managerial experience. Labor is represented by the 
 employees, but its contribution unlike that of capital, is 
 not detachable from the one who makes it, for it is his 
 physical effort, his strength, his life. 
 
 "Here the list usually ends, for the fourth party, namely, 
 the community, whose interest is vital and in the last analy- 
 
122 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 sis, controlling, is too often ignored. The community's 
 right to representation in the control of industry and in 
 the shaping of industrial policies is similar to that of labor. 
 But for the community's contribution, in the maintenance of 
 law and order, of agencies of transportation and communica- 
 tion, of systems of money and credit and of other services, 
 all involving continuous outlays, the operation of capital, 
 management and labor would be enormously hampered, if 
 not rendered well nigh, impossible. Furthermore, the com- 
 munity is the consumer of the product of industry, and the 
 money which it pays for the product provides the wages, 
 salaries and profits that are distributed among the other 
 parties. 
 
 Might not the four parties to industry subscribe 
 to an industrial creed somewhat as follows : 
 
 "1. I believe that Labor and Capital are partners, not 
 enemies; that their interests are common interests, not op- 
 posed, and that neither can attain the fullest measure of 
 prosperity at the expense of the other, but only in associa- 
 tion with the other. 
 
 "2. I believe that the community is an essential party to 
 industry and that it should have adequate representation 
 with the other parties. 
 
 "3. I believe that the purpose of industry is quite as much 
 to advance social well-being as material well-being and that 
 in the pursuit of that purpose the interests of the community 
 should be carefully considered, the well-being of the em- 
 ployees as respects living and working conditions should be 
 fully guarded, management should be adequately recognized 
 and capital should be justly compensated, and that failure 
 in any of these particulars means loss to all four. 
 
LATEST IDEAS OF LEADING MEN 123 
 
 "4. I believe that every man is entitled to an opportunity 
 to earn a living, to fair wages, to reasonable hours of work 
 and proper working conditions; to a decent home, to the 
 opportunity to play, to learn, to worship and to love, as well 
 as to toil, and that the responsibility rests as heavily upon 
 industry as upon government or society, to see that these 
 conditions and opportunities prevail. 
 
 "5. I believe that industry, efficiency and initiative, 
 wherever found, should be encouraged and adequately 
 rewarded, and that indolence, indifference and restriction 
 of production should be discountenanced. 
 
 "6. I believe that the provision of adequate means of 
 uncovering grievances and promptly adjusting them is of 
 fundamental importance to the successful conduct of 
 industry. 
 
 "7. I believe that the most potent measure in bringing 
 about industrial harmony and prosperity is adequate 
 representation of the parties in interest; that existing forms 
 of representation should be carefully studied and availed 
 of in so far as they may be found to have merit and are 
 adaptable to the peculiar conditions in the various industries. 
 
 "8. I believe that the most effective structure of represen- 
 tation is that which is built from the bottom up, which 
 includes all employees, and, starting with the election of 
 representatives in each industrial plant, the formation of 
 joint works' committees, of joint district councils, and 
 annual joint conferences of all the parties in interest in a 
 single industrial corporation, can be extended in, include all 
 plants in the same industry, all industries in a community, 
 in a nation, and in the various nations. 
 
 "9. I believe that the application of right principles 
 never fails to effect right relations that the latter killeth and 
 the spirit maketh alive; that forms are wholly secondary 
 
124 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 while attitude and spirit are all important, and that only as 
 the parties in industry are animated by the spirit of fair 
 play, justice to all and brotherhood, will any plans which 
 they may mutually work out succeed. 
 
 "10. I believe that that man renders the greatest social 
 service who so cooperates in the organization of industry 
 as to afford to the largest number of men the greatest 
 opportunity for self-development and the enjoyment by 
 every man of those benefits which his own work adds to the 
 wealth of civilization. 
 
 THE GREATER VALUES IN LIFE 
 
 "Men are rapidly coming to see that human life is of in- 
 finitely greater value than material wealth, that the health, 
 happiness and well-being of the individual, however humble, 
 is not to be sacrificed to the selfish aggrandizement of the 
 more fortunate or more powerful. Modern thought is 
 placing less emphasis on material considerations. It is 
 recognizing that the basis of national progress, whether 
 industrial or social, is the health, efficiency and spiritual 
 development of the people. Never has there been a more 
 profound belief in human life than today. Whether man 
 work with brain or brawn, they are human beings with the 
 same cravings, the same aspirations, the same hatreds, the 
 same capacity for suffering, and for enjoyment. 
 
 "As the leaders of industry face this period of reconstruc- 
 tion, what will their attitude be? Will it be that of the 
 stand-patters, who take no account of the extraordinary 
 changes which have come over the face of the civilized world 
 and have taken place in the minds of men, who say, * What 
 has been and is, must continue to be with our backs to the 
 wall we will fight it out along the old lines or go down with 
 the ship.' Will they attempt stubbornly to resist the 
 
LATEST IDEAS OF LEADING MEN 125 
 
 inevitable, and arming themselves to the teeth, invite open 
 warfare with the other parties in industry? The certain 
 outcome of this will be financial loss, inconvenience and 
 suffering- to all, the development of bitterness and hatred, 
 and in the end the bringing about through legislation if 
 not by force, conditions far more drastic and radical than 
 could now be amicably arrived at through mutual con- 
 cession in friendly conference? 
 
 THE NEW ORDER 
 
 "Or will it be an attitude, in which I myself profoundly 
 believe, which takes cognizance of the inherent right and 
 justice of the principles underlying the new order, which 
 recognizes that mighty changes are inevitable, many of them 
 desirable, and, not waiting until forced to adopt new meth- 
 ods, they will take the lead in calling together the parties in 
 interest for a round-table conference to be held in a spirit 
 of justice, fair play and brotherhood with a view to working 
 out some plan of cooperation which will insure to all those 
 concerned adequate representation, an opportunity to 
 earn a fair wage under proper working and living conditions, 
 with such restrictions as to hours as shall leave time not 
 alone for food and sleep, but also for recreation and the 
 development of the higher things of life. 
 
 "Never was there such an opportunity as exists today for 
 the industrial leader with clear vision and broad sympathy 
 permanently to bridge the chasm that is daily gaping wider 
 between the parties in interest and to establish a solid 
 foundation for industrial prosperity, social improvement and 
 national solidarity. Future generations will rise up and 
 call those men blessed who have the courage of their con- 
 victions, a proper appreciation of the value of human life 
 as contrasted with material gain, and who, imbued with the 
 
126 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 spirit of brotherhood, will lay hold of the great opportunity 
 for leadership which is open to them today. 
 
 "In conclusion, let it be said that upon the heads of these 
 leaders it matters not to which of the four parties they 
 belong who refuse to reorganize their industrial households 
 in the light of the modern spirit, will rest the responsibility 
 for such radical and drastic measures as may later be forced 
 upon industry if the highest interest of all are not shortly 
 considered and dealt with in a spirit of fairness. Who, I 
 say, dares to block the wheels of progress, and to fail to 
 recognize and seize the present opportunity of helping 
 to usher in a new era of industrial peace and prosperity? 
 
 Here is what Charles M. Schwaab, who 
 perhaps employs more labor than any other 
 man in the United States if not in the world, 
 says about the new phases of the problems of 
 management. 
 
 "My friends, there is one other question of great and 
 timely importance, to cover which no one can lay down 
 general rules, and that is this great and important labor 
 question. I am one of the men who believes in the fairness 
 of American labor. I am one of the men who believes that 
 the only foundation upon which any of these things can 
 permanently rest is the economic use of everything, whether 
 it be labor, material, manufacture or what not. Any 
 foundation of organized labor or capital that is on a false 
 basis must fail. 
 
 "Our Congress, our legislature in Washington, realized 
 it, and rightly and justly took steps to correct it. What has 
 been true of capital will be equally true of labor, and there- 
 fore the education of the American laboring man, must 
 
LATEST IDEAS OF LEADING MEN 127 
 
 be to have him realize that his permanency and success, 
 and the success of the nation, will depend upon labor con- 
 ditions and capital conditions that are founded on economic 
 principles first of all. 
 
 "I am not opposed to organized labor. I believe that 
 labor should organize in individual plants or amongst 
 themselves for the better negotiation of labor and the pro- 
 tection of their own rights; but the organization and control 
 of labor in individual plants and manufacturies, to my mind, 
 ought to be made representative of the people in those 
 plants who know the conditions. 
 
 SHARING WITH LABOR 
 
 "But, gentlemen, in the years gone by, I seriously doubt 
 many times if labor has received its fair share of the pros- 
 perity of this great country. We, as manufacturers, have 
 got to open our eyes to a wide vision of the present and the 
 future with reference to our workmen. We have got to 
 devise ways and means by which capital and labor shall 
 share equally, not in theory, but in practice. We have got 
 to devise ways and means of education. We must not 
 only talk about these things but we must do these things. 
 We have got to realize that many unjust demands will be 
 made by labor as they probably have been made by capital- 
 ists and employers in the past. That is one of the lessons 
 this great war has taught us true democracy. The thing 
 we have to do is to touch, not patronize, to educate and have 
 the American laborer know and feel that he can stand with 
 his head in the air as you and as I can, and say with pride, 
 "I am an American citizen." 
 
 What does American citizenship mean except that^any 
 man to be a true American citizen must be^able^tojhold 
 
128 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 up his head and feel within his heart that he has done his 
 duty to his nation and to his fellow men. 
 
 AUTOCRACY DEAD 
 
 "Matters will adjust themselves industrially in this 
 country sooner or later by the natural course of events, 
 but what we want to prevent is that sudden slip of the 
 cog which will give us a social jolt that may be dangerous 
 to our industries for years to come. We must be patient. 
 We must go along with small or no profits if necessary. 
 We must bend every effort to keep our employees busy, 
 employed and satisfied. They must be made to realize 
 the situation as we see it and be content to help us in 
 that development. We must get closer together with our 
 work people. We must listen with patience to their side of 
 the story. The day of autocracy in government and labor 
 has gone by. It is the day of democracy in which we now 
 stand shoulder to shoulder for the protection of our mutual 
 interests. 
 
 "Let us go home with our minds and hearts filled with 
 determination that we American manufacturers and Ameri- 
 can business men are going to have successful accomplish- 
 ments, that we are going to have it in an honorable way and 
 that we ask our great representatives in Washington, 
 from the President and the Secretary of Commerce down, 
 to help American business men help sustain the prestige of 
 the American nation and that we pledge ourselves to treat 
 fairly with that great army of workmen who must share 
 with us the prosperity and happiness of this great country of 
 ours. 
 
 Henry P. Kendall, Executive Secretary, Com- 
 mittee of Industrial Relations and himself a 
 
LATEST IDEAS OF LEADING MEN 129 
 
 large employer, has this to say, in a paper before 
 the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 
 December, 1918, on the "Standardization and 
 Administration of Wages." 
 
 "With the end of the war, the greatest industrial problem 
 doubtless is this: What general principles shall be followed 
 in dealing with the labor problems of the future with all 
 their unseen dangers and possibilities? War has changed 
 conditions to such an extent that a return to the status quo 
 ante is difficult, even though it were desirable and possible. 
 The only alternative to the old system of allowing industrial 
 relations to be adjusted by natural economic laws and pre- 
 venting bargains seems to be that of standardization, or the 
 conscientious and systematic regulation of these relation- 
 ships by collective action, which does not necessarily mean 
 Government administration, but which may be accom- 
 plished by voluntary collective action. 
 
 "The term 'standardization* does not necessarily mean 
 uniformity of wages, hours or conditions of work. It means 
 the determination of these conditions according to general 
 principles, the justice of which is universally acknowledged. 
 It is much easier to establish general principles than it is 
 to derive the particular standards from them and apply 
 such standards to actual situations. 
 
 REGULATION OP INDUSTRY 
 
 "It is a serious question whether it is possible to escape 
 the task of regulating industrial relations. There are even 
 now establishments and entire industries where standard- 
 ization is already imposed upon the employer, not by a board 
 in which his interests are protected by arbitration, but by 
 
130 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 labor unions. A general principle which determines stand- 
 ards under these conditions is not to the best interest of the 
 industry, and does not even take into consideration justice 
 either to employers or members of the union, but only the 
 preservation of the existence and power of the union. So 
 long as the union must fight for its existence and is subject 
 to attack, it must adopt this principle just as government's 
 first duty is self-preservation. 
 
 "The regulation of industrial standards by joint boards as 
 suggested has the great advantage over the present system in 
 that it eliminates at least three-fourths of the cost of friction 
 and strife between the particular employer and his em- 
 ployees. Each employer then adopts the standards which 
 are current in his trade and knows that all his competitors 
 are on the same basis and have no advantage over him. 
 
 "Even under our present system, the chief objection to 
 any one employer's increasing wages lies in the fact that it 
 comes out of the profits unless the increase is general among 
 his competitors, when it is shifted to the consumer of the 
 product. It is easy to foresee a time when the public and 
 not the employers will have the chief interest in opposing 
 wage advances. 
 
 "In many, if not most, of the cases where employment 
 conditions are admittedly unsatisfactory, the employers 
 are helpless to improve them on account of the pressure of 
 competition. The plan for organizing adjustment boards 
 provides a remedy for this by attempting to establish 
 sandards for itself which are protected against demoraliza- 
 tion by competition. 
 
 "The tendencies for industries to become more and more 
 dependent upon each other is increasing and the consequence 
 of this is an increasing necessity for industrial peace. The 
 indirect effects of stoppages increase with the greater inte- 
 
LATEST IDEAS OF LEADING MEN 131 
 
 gration of industry, and the number of interests and people 
 who suffer from labor difficulty and yet have no direct 
 participation in them grows each year. A street-railway 
 strike, for example, in a great city causes a collateral loss 
 of business all out of proportion to the amount in dispute 
 between the company and its employees. The indirect 
 interests affected by labor disputes are therefore becoming 
 so important as to be entitled to more consideration than 
 they have had in the past. 
 
 "Standardization is increasing in the larger industrial 
 establishments. The introduction of employment and 
 labor departments with functionalized executives and more 
 or less application of the principles of scientific management 
 has tended to eliminate the older methods of individual 
 bargaining by a foreman or shop executives. The adminis- 
 tration of industrial relations, especially wages, by a skilled 
 person specialized for the work is no longer an experiment. 
 There is a natural tendency wherever the employment mana- 
 ger has been introduced to enlarge his functions until he 
 becomes a part of the management, where his experience 
 and influence are utilized for the benefit of the business in all 
 matters touching the interests of the employees. 
 
 EMPLOYEES' GRIEVANCES 
 
 "No industrial administration is complete until in some 
 part it is sensitive or responsive to the aspirations and griev- 
 ances of the employee. The efficiency of production is often 
 affected fundamentally by action taken in other depart- 
 ments of the business. Moreover, the labor manager has 
 an opportunity to interpret a business policy to be estab- 
 lished by the working force and may frequently forestall 
 opposition and ill-feeling by timely explanation of the 
 reasons for such policies and standards. 
 
132 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 "There is a tendency where standards are fixed by hap- 
 hazard methods or in the heat of struggle with labor unions 
 for certain fundamentally right and efficient principles to be 
 overlooked or submerged. That wherever there is a stand- 
 ardized wage there should also be a specified measure of 
 proficient labor performed is not to be disputed by any 
 reasonable person; yet situations are created where this 
 just principle is opposed by labor organizations who feel 
 compelled to take that position because of the circumstances 
 of the situation. 
 
 "Another principle, equally self-evident, is that every 
 worker has a moral right to compensation in direct propor- 
 tion to his individual accomplishment, yet for reasons which 
 seem to them to be valid, the unions frequently set them- 
 selves squarely against piece-work or bonus systems which 
 aim to employ this principle. Under some system of stand- 
 ardization it is likely that these just principles may be 
 reestablished with proper safeguards against abuse, but 
 not until then is it possible to utilize them without creating 
 grievances. 
 
 "The war period has created a very perceptible change in 
 attitude on the part of employers toward what is loosely 
 termed "collective bargaining." This does not mean, of 
 course, that the management of industry should be turned 
 over to labor unions, nor does it even mean that employers 
 shall have dealings with the officials of labor unions. It does 
 mean, however, that employers recognize the need for a 
 greater sense of responsibility on the part of the employees 
 toward the efficiency and success of the business in which 
 they are engaged, and that in order to develop this sense 
 of responsibility greater participation in those matters which 
 vitally concern them shall be granted to the workers. 
 Moreover, the worker should be given an opportunity 
 
LATEST IDEAS OF LEADING MEN 133 
 
 to learn more about the policies of the establishment and the 
 difficulties of management. It is recognized that the in- 
 difference and even hostility of the workers to efficiency 
 arises from their relationship to the business and the absence 
 of reasons why they should be interested. 
 
 REPRESENTATION IN INDUSTRY 
 
 "The Federal Labor Administration, following the Presi- 
 dent's proclamation by which the War Labor Board was 
 created and manifested in the collective-bargaining clauses 
 of the Quartermaster's and Ordnance contracts, gave an 
 impetus to the general principle of participation in manage- 
 ment which many have begun to see offers an opportunity 
 for a general betterment of industrial relations in individual 
 plants. The introduction of a system of organized repre- 
 sentation of employees by the Standard Oil interests and the 
 apparent success of the idea has stimulated general interest, 
 and it now appears that this idea is likely to be much more 
 generally accepted, especially by large industrial plants. 
 
 "The misgivings with which many industrial employers 
 contemplate the introduction of this principle is due to their 
 fear that it may introduce unionism in some of its evil forms 
 into their establishments, and if this were true they would 
 be justified. It seems clear, however, that the worst 
 features of unionism are due to the circumstances in which 
 these organizations must be created and developed; the 
 vigorous opposition of employers to organization among the 
 workers creates in them a spirit of antagonism to the em- 
 ployer, and this naturally creates a type of organization 
 which, because of the hostility engendered by the warfare 
 with employers, must fight for its life, and in so doing, 
 must create a spirit of hatred and disloyalty to the employer 
 among the membership. We have seen in the great war 
 
134 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 that efficiency in fighting depends upon the passionate 
 feeling which can be developed in fighters against the 
 enemy. This accounts for the unreasonable and violent 
 practices and policies of the labor unions. 
 
 "It is reasonable to expect that organization of employees 
 fostered by the employer and given full opportunity to 
 function legitimately in matters which touch the interests of 
 employees may develop into constructive agencies whose 
 criticisms and suggestions may be of great value in improv- 
 ing the efficiency of the business. In fact, there has been 
 enough experience in several American establishments and 
 industries to show that this is a natural development of 
 employees' representation. That responsibility creates 
 conservatism is a truth which has been demonstrated, and 
 nowhere more convincingly than in industrial relations. 
 Give employees responsibility and opportunity to exercise 
 it and sooner or later there must develop leadership among 
 them which will contribute not a little to the vitality and 
 general efficiency of the establishment. 
 
 GIVE LABOR A FAIR SHARE 
 
 "To make this plan truly successful, however, the 
 management must decide to give labor a fair share of the 
 results of the efficiencies and economies realized. Too 
 often by the introduction of new methods and labor-saving 
 machinery the employer cannot bring himself to yield a 
 share of the benefits to the employees, although he expects 
 them to bear uncomplainingly the hardships which may 
 attend the transition. The difficulties of systematically 
 giving to the workers their share of the profits are perplexing. 
 In fact, the subject of profit sharing is very attractive to 
 any student of industrial relations, but the particular 
 difficulties have frightened many away from the subject. 
 
LATEST IDEAS OF LEADING MEN 135 
 
 The general principle that every man should have the oppor- 
 tunity to reap the reward of his own efficient efforts whether 
 applied individually or collectively with others is admitted 
 by all, and most people admit that the principle must be 
 employed in some form in an ideal system. 
 
 "Experience with profit sharing has revealed certain 
 truths: The more direct and immediate the relation be- 
 tween reward and special effort or efficiency, the more likely 
 it is to be successful. The greater the benefit realized by 
 the worker or his family through the reward of special effort, 
 the more effective is it as an inducement. Bonuses or 
 other extra rewards which are spent by the worker in a 
 wasteful manner and without a proportionate improvement 
 in his general well-being are not so highly appreciated as 
 those which represent some permanent benefit, such as 
 insurance for his family against sickness or death, permanent 
 improvement in his living conditions, especially housing, 
 or investments which increase his feeling of security and 
 give him an incentive to thrift. Any system of profit 
 sharing, therefore, should take into full account the perma- 
 nent needs of the worker and attempt to satisfy them to a 
 maximum. 
 
 "The absence of any recognized principle for the distribu- 
 tion of the profits of a business as between the proprietor 
 and the workers is a great problem, especially where there 
 is an amicable system of industrial relations in vogue. It 
 is difficult to know what is the right and just method to 
 use, but the difficulty will be largely overcome in the indi- 
 vidual establishment by the plan of standardization or regu- 
 lation of industrial relations by industries which has been 
 previously suggested. 
 
 "If this perplexing matter of distribution could be elimi- 
 nated from the relationship between employer and employees 
 
136 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 in particular establishments, then the introduction of the 
 ideas of employment labor management, representation 
 of employees, responsible leadership among the employees 
 and the comprehensive service department helping the 
 employees to collectively improve their living conditions 
 might result in a relationship so applicable and profitable 
 to both employer and employee that we might anticipate, 
 if not have the solution of the labor problem; at least, so 
 great an improvement over the old condition as to constitute 
 an industrial revolution in the best sense of the word." 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 COLLECTIVE BARGAINING 
 
 It seems to be pretty generally conceded that 
 the era of collective bargaining is at hand. This 
 means that workers must be dealt with through 
 their organizations or their representatives just 
 as in all legal cases both sides are represented by 
 their lawyers. It does not matter whether we 
 like the lawyer our opponents have selected or 
 not, the court hears them as long as they keep 
 within the law. If we refuse to answer the 
 questions of their lawyer, unless for especially 
 good reasons, the judge reprimands us. 
 
 Among the conservative men who see that 
 individual dealings with workmen is on the wane 
 is Justice Charles E. Hughes who, in his late 
 speech before the Institute of Arts and Sciences 
 at Columbia University on November 30, 1918, 
 said: 
 
 "I trust there will be no more struggles in futile opposition 
 to the right of collective bargaining on the part of employees. 
 The recognition of the right of representation and the 
 prompt hearing of grievances provide the open doors to 
 reasonable and just settlements. And in returning to 
 peace conditions there should be the utmost care to preserve 
 
 137 
 
138 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 every possible means which has been found helpful during 
 the war for the investigation of the complaints of labor and 
 for the adjustment of demands." 
 
 Ex-president William Howard Taft goes into 
 more details in a copyrighted editorial in the 
 Philadelphia Public Ledger, as follows: 
 
 "Organization of labor has become a recognized insti- 
 tution in all the civilized countries of the world. It has 
 come to stay; it is full of usefulness and is necessary to 
 the laborer. It shows serious defects at times and in some 
 unions. These are an apparent willingness to accept 
 benefits enforced through a fear of lawlessness, a disposition 
 to use duress to compel laborers to join unions, and efforts 
 to limit output and to create a dead level of wages, and 
 thus wipe out the necessary and useful difference in com- 
 pensation of those who are industrious and skillful and of 
 those who are lazy and do not strive to increase the prod- 
 uct of the employer whom they serve. 
 
 " These are evils that as the unions grow in wise and 
 intelligent leadership we may well hope will be greatly 
 minimized. 
 
 "Much can be done by employers in anticipating just 
 demands of employees. Workers have had too many 
 instances of holding back of employers until they are forced 
 to do justice. Too many employers seek to justify failure 
 to rae waisges by pointing to their welfare work for their 
 employes. This is of a paternal character and impresses 
 the workers with the idea that they are being looked after 
 as wards and not treated as men capable of exercising 
 independent discretion as to their welfare. They are apt 
 to give the employees the idea that it is a generous con- 
 
COLLECTIVE BARGAINING 139 
 
 cession they are making out of the goodness of their hearts 
 and that they are not merely yielding a right for a quid 
 pro quo for what they receive. 
 
 EXTREMISTS HARD TO DEAL WITH 
 
 "The most difficult persons to deal with are the extremists 
 on both sides. On the side of labor there seems to be much 
 suspicion by one leader or another, that few are willing 
 to make a just concession, not because they do not recognize 
 its justice, but because if they admit it they are charged 
 with betraying the cause of labor. Thus they furnish to 
 their rivals in leadership among workingmen the opportu- 
 nity to undermine their standing with their fellows. This 
 often puts the labor side in an indefensible position and of- 
 fers to its enemies a basis for criticism that might easily be 
 avoided. 
 
 "On the other hand, there is among employers the bour- 
 bon, the man who never learns anything and never forgets 
 anything; the man who says: 'It is my legal right to manage 
 my business as I choose, to pay such wages as I choose, 
 to agree to such terms of employment as I choose, to ex- 
 clude from my employment union men, because I do not 
 approve of the tenets of the union, and to maintain a family 
 arrangement of my own. I do fairly by my men; I pay 
 them what I think is right, and they will not complain 
 unless some outside union agent interferes. I run a closed 
 non-union shop, and I am happy and propose to continue 
 happy/ 
 
 LACKS BREADTH OF VISION 
 
 "This man is far behind in the progress of our social 
 civilization. He lacks breadth of vision extending beyond 
 the confines of his shop. He looks to fear of courts and 
 
140 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 injunctions and police and militia as the ordinary and usual 
 instruments for continuing his business peacefully and 
 maintaining his rights. He is like the man who regards the 
 threat of a divorce court as a proper and usual means of 
 continuing domestic happiness. He does not recognize that 
 we have advanced beyond the state in which employers 
 and employees are mere laws unto themselves. 
 
 "He does not see that the whole public is interested in 
 industrial peace. He does not see that the employers have 
 certain duties social in their nature that are not defined 
 and are not enforcible in law, but exist just as family duties 
 of care and affection exist. He has not followed the growth 
 of things. 
 
 WEBB AT EMPLOYERS' MERCY 
 
 "As long as the system that he insists upon continues, 
 individual laborers were at the mercy of their employers. 
 Whatever they got was a concession. They could not main- 
 tain themselves in a contest with their employer, dependent 
 as they were on their daily wage and independent as 
 he was with accumulated capital. That very unjust 
 situation led to the organization of labor that the employee 
 by massing contributions may maintain himself during an 
 industrial struggle without wages. 
 
 "This has come to collective bargaining, which is bar- 
 gaining by the group system. A group of laborers knowing 
 their rights and knowing how to maintain them, put them- 
 selves on a level with their employers and the result reached 
 is far nearer a just one than any before attained. That it 
 may often be unjust goes without saying, but so are all 
 human attempts to reach the right line. Of course those 
 individual laborers who do not see the advantage to them of 
 the group system have a right to stay out and must be 
 
COLLECTIVE BARGAINING 141 
 
 protected in doing so. But whether we will or not, the 
 group system is here to stay, and every statesman and every 
 man interested in public affairs must recognize that it has 
 to be dealt with as a condition to be favored in such a way 
 as to minimize its abuses and to increase its utility. 
 
 HAVE BEEN GIVEN SENSE OP POWER 
 
 "The workingmen of the country, since the war began 
 and the importance of their group action has been em- 
 phasized by the requirements of the war, have been given a 
 sense of power in their united action which we must rec- 
 ognize and deal with. Of course, they may abuse this power, 
 and, if so, they may find that they are not the entire com- 
 munity; but if under level-headed leadership they do not 
 push it to an excess, they will be able to do much for their 
 members and indeed for the community at large. 
 
 "The junkers and the hunkers on both sides must stand 
 aside and will be set aside if common sense prevails. The 
 danger from bolshevism is far greater than from reaction to 
 the bourbon type of employment. The intelligent, con- 
 servative leaders of the labor movement should be encour- 
 aged. Their difficulties in dealing with their extreme 
 constituents should be recognized. 
 
 "A national board, consisting of a number of such intelli- 
 gent, conservative labor leaders on the one hand, liberal- 
 minded, broad-visioned representatives of the employers on 
 the other hand, should be continued as a refuge to be offered 
 to both sides of an industrial controversy about to engage 
 in wasteful strife by strike and lockout, so that their argu- 
 ments can be thrashed out and some sort of a compromise 
 approximating justice may be reached. If the national 
 war labor board has shown the wisdom of the use of such a 
 board it has attained a real success." 
 
142 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 PREFERS TO DEAL WITH UNIONS 
 
 There are many others, well known to all, 
 and most of them conservative rather than rad- 
 ical in all things, who frankly advocate the rec- 
 ognition of labor organizations and cooperation 
 with them. In his address before the Babson 
 Conference on Cooperation, John S. Kent, 
 president of the Brockton Shoe Manufacturers' 
 Association, the National Association of Shoe 
 Manufacturers and also president of a large 
 shoe manufacturing company, before the Babson 
 Conference outlined his 20 years' experience in 
 dealing with the Boot and Shoe Workers' Union, 
 and in all that time there had been no labor dis- 
 turbance until this year when the radical group 
 formed a new union. This, however, was not 
 at all serious. He advocated the closest coopera- 
 tion with the labor leaders instead of making 
 outlaws of them, and said that his greatest 
 criticism was that in some cases they built up a 
 certain autocracy in the union, which failed to 
 hold the individual men and women. He believes 
 that every individual in the shop must be made 
 to feel that he or she is a responsible part of the 
 union, of the organization and of the community. 
 
 Mr. Kent spoke of the excellent work done 
 by the State Board of Arbitration, and suggested 
 
COLLECTIVE BARGAINING 143 
 
 the advisability of a national labor board to 
 which all matters could be appealed and, if 
 possible, settled. He does not believe that labor 
 will ever be satisfied any more than capital, 
 but that both will strive for better things, which 
 is a good thing for the country. He has found 
 that satisfactory dealings with union or any kind 
 of labor depend largely on the attitude of the 
 employer. The employer must consider that 
 the other man is as human as himself, and must 
 realize that any attempt to keep men down as 
 workmen is largely responsible for the distrust 
 and antagonism found. He believes in meeting 
 his men face to face as men, and in dealing with 
 them through their organizations. He feels that 
 organized labor will break down class distinction 
 and instill a better spirit into the men. This is 
 the result of his 20 years 7 experience and is there- 
 fore entitled to careful consideration. 
 
 DECREASING SPOILED WORK 
 
 At the same conference C. H. Skinner of the 
 Covert Gear Manufacturing Co. told of the 
 improved results the company has secured since 
 forming an organization in its shop. It includes 
 all the men and foremen and is about to become 
 a part of the regular union. Since the organiza- 
 tion was formed, in which an attempt was made to 
 
144 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 deal with the men as men and on what Mr. 
 Skinner termed a " fifty-fifty basis," lost time 
 had been reduced from 9 per cent, to less than 
 4 per cent., production had increased 50 per cent., 
 and spoiled work has also been greatly reduced. 
 The men were asked to organize so that they 
 could be dealt with collectively. 
 
 The management endeavors to know its men 
 thoroughly, to see that wages are raised as soon 
 as due and to transfer men from one department 
 to another in order to secure better results, and 
 it has found the combination to work satisfac- 
 torily. They believe by taking an interest in 
 the men at their work that this will be returned, 
 as men like to feel that their work is appreciated 
 and that they are coworkers instead of hired 
 hands. The 55-hour week, under which they 
 have been working, has been found too long, and 
 this is to be reduced to 48, as the management is 
 convinced that the output can be made at least 
 equal to that obtained at the present time. 
 
 THE TIME HAS COME FOR COOPERATION 
 
 There are those who, owing to unfortunate 
 experiences with labor organizations in the past, 
 believe that their only salvation is to fight all 
 organizations of labor. Whatever may have 
 been the merits of this attitude in the past, it is 
 
COLLECTIVE BARGAINING 145 
 
 untenable at the present time when everything 
 points to the growth of collective bargaining as 
 one of the principles of employment. This has 
 been recognized by all the allied governments, in- 
 cluding our own, and it is upheld very strongly by 
 many of the best known British employers who 
 have had much more experience in that direction 
 than we. 
 
 No one will deny that labor organizations have 
 made unwarranted demands in the past and that 
 they have not always kept their agreements. 
 Neither would it be difficult to find cases where 
 organizations of employers have taken advantage 
 of their power and where rates have been cut 
 without warrent. Recrimination does no good 
 in either case, the problem is to find a way in 
 which industrial harmony can be secured and 
 maintained with fairness to all concerned. And 
 this we are coming to learn, means the com- 
 munity or general public as well as the employer 
 and employee. 
 
 The experience of those employers who have 
 voluntarily granted a large measure of self- 
 government to their employees, or have even 
 given them a voice in the actual management 
 of the concern, shows that there is little to fear 
 from unfair decisions when the facts of case are 
 laid before them. The experience of the Filene 
 
 10 
 
146 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 Company as outlined on page 30 can be dupli- 
 cated in many instances. The average employee 
 means to be fair just as does the average employer. 
 It is the exception on both sides which brings the 
 whole mass into disrepute. 
 
 BUILDING UP A LOYAL ORGANIZATION 
 
 The manufacturer who decides to gather his 
 organization into a real family group, both as 
 to having a voice in the management of the shop 
 and a share in the profits, is anticipating the 
 trend of the times and can, by so doing, build up 
 such a loyal organization as to make the results 
 astonishing, even to himself. True there are 
 bound to be lean years, but men do not expect 
 the impossible. And when they have confidence 
 in the men at the head, a confidence born of 
 equitable and friendly relations, they will work 
 all the harder when occasion demands. 
 
 The millenium is not likely to result from any 
 of the plans suggested, nor should it be expected. 
 No arrangement, however perfect, will function 
 properly at all times. No family ever lives with 
 a complete understanding on all questions at all 
 times, and we should not expect more in the 
 industry with its mixture of nationalities and the 
 great differences in temperament of the different 
 people. We must realize that new problems are 
 
COLLECTIVE BARGAINING 147 
 
 being presented and that they cannot be solved 
 by old methods in all eases. 
 
 THE COMMUNITY MUST BE CONSIDERED 
 
 The main thing is to adjust ourselves to the 
 newer idea that every one owes a duty to the 
 community and to the country and that the time 
 is passing when we can act without reference to 
 its effect on others. The time is fast going by 
 when we can say, with the old railroad president, 
 "the public be damned." 
 
 The manager of a large factory recently an- 
 nounced that he would burn his shop down 
 rather than deal with his men on a disputed 
 question or submit to the ruling of the govern- 
 ments board of arbiters. But he soon found 
 that he was not on a desert island but a member 
 of a community and of a country which needed 
 the products of his factory, and that dire punish- 
 ment awaited him should he attempt to carry 
 out his threat. It is not easy to accept this 
 doctrine in all cases but there is every indication 
 that it has come to stay and the sooner we recog- 
 nize it the better for all concerned. Czarism is 
 not to be tolerated on either side of the employ- 
 ment question. There must be a "League of 
 Nations" which shall prevent industrial differ- 
 ences from reaching the warlike stage, if we are 
 
148 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 to take our place in the world markets of the 
 coming generation. 
 
 A manufacturing friend with an eye for the 
 future has been seeking a method of giving his 
 men an interest in the concern without the 
 usual difficulties of stock transference and similar 
 details. He wishes, for the present at least to 
 retain title to the business, and yet feels that 
 every man who actively produces should have 
 his share of the profits. The plan is as follows 
 and is given as suggestion for any who may be 
 interested along a similar line. It differs from 
 the plans adopted by several such large concerns 
 as the Cleveland Twist Drill Company, which 
 has a very successful method of distribution. 
 
 A SUGGESTED PLAN FOR PROFIT SHARING 
 
 This plan first lays aside 6 percent as interest 
 or dividend on the money invested which it 
 pays to stock holders. It then puts aside such 
 percentage as may be necessary for a sinking 
 fund to take care of depreciation, renewals and 
 unforeseen contingencies. The remainder of the 
 net profit is then divided pro rata, according to 
 salary, among every worker in the plant. 
 
 This is on the assumption that the salaries 
 paid represent the contribution of each worker 
 to the output, and is as fair a way as any, assum- 
 
COLLECTIVE BARGAINING 149 
 
 ing that certain salaries are not padded for this 
 purpose. The owner in this case draws his 6 
 percent on the capital invested, plus his per- 
 centage of the surplus, in accordance with his 
 salary as manager. The superintendent, assum- 
 ing that his salary was one-half that of the mana- 
 ger would draw one-half as much bonus but the 
 owner would of course, have his interest on 
 capital in addition. If any of the stock was 
 held by one who did not do anything toward the 
 productive work of the company, this stock 
 holder would receive nothing but his 6 percent 
 interest. 
 
 In this way each worker virtually has a 
 drawing account the same as a travelling sales- 
 man and he gets his commissions, or earnings, 
 at stated intervals. It is generally best to have 
 these intervals as frequent as possible, especially 
 until the system is well established. This brings 
 a very pleasant and a very forcible reminder 
 which proves beyond a doubt that the worker 
 is a part of the institution. 
 
 There are, of course, many other details to be 
 considered. Continuity of service, the rewards 
 due to standing by a firm through thick and thin, 
 must be cared for in some way. The value of 
 the accumulated knowledge of years must also 
 be considered. But this may form some sort of 
 
150 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 a basis from which a workable plan may be 
 evolved. 
 
 The details of such a plan as this must be 
 worked out for the individual case. But there 
 can hardly be a question as to the effective 
 organization which can be built up in this way, 
 where every man can see how his own efforts 
 and those of his co-workers affect the profits or 
 bonus which he will receive. The shirker is 
 weeded out by his companions without much 
 hesitation when he is a menace to their earnings. 
 
 Other shops have worked out plans of giving 
 a bonus for steady attendance every day of the 
 week and an additional bonus when the monthly 
 sheet shows no absences. These have had a very 
 good effect in preventing machines from lying 
 idle, but this is automatically taken care of by 
 the general bonus or profit-sharing plan as 
 first outlined. 
 
 The bonus on all work over a set standard is 
 quite a common practice but is not as popular 
 as it might be in some quarters. The charge is 
 frequently made that it is used as a method of 
 inducing speeding up beyond a safe limit, but 
 this of course depends upon the needs or on the 
 avariciousness of the man in question. 
 
 Some object to anything approaching profit- 
 sharing on the ground that it necessitates showing 
 
COLLECTIVE BARGAINING 151 
 
 the books of the company to the workers. The 
 workings of the income tax law has however, 
 paved the way for this as we can have very few 
 secrets in this connection and, when we get over 
 the first shock of the new procedure, it will not 
 seem nearly as difficult, should we decide that 
 this is the better way. But whatever we do, 
 let us keep abreast of the tide instead of being 
 swept along with it. 
 
 THE SQUAKE DEAL WILL WIN 
 
 No one can predict with any certainty as to 
 the working out of the problems which are before 
 us. But if we can prevent clashes between the 
 radicals of both capital and labor, all will be well. 
 The radicals on both sides are dangerous to the 
 well being of the country. We have, fortunately, 
 large employers of labor who see that the old 
 condition was not all that might be desired and 
 who are striving to bring about a better under- 
 standing between all the parties involved. Some 
 of the best known efficiency engineers are point- 
 ing out that true efficiency does not mean the 
 lowest wage or the highest dividend. H. L. 
 Gantt points out that when the management can- 
 not keep all its machines busy it should not expect 
 dividends on the idle machines. In other words 
 
152 LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 idle capital should not expect returns any more 
 than idle labor. 
 
 Whatever the method of adjusting the returns 
 from both labor and capital, the principle of 
 the square deal must be observed if we are to 
 have industrial peace and to share in the pros- 
 perity which will come after the period of read- 
 justment. Many of the old idols will fall by 
 the wayside and vested privileges will go the way 
 of empires and kingdoms. Few things will 
 remain as they were before the great war. Pro- 
 duction is more necessary than ever before and 
 we must utilize every means of securing it. 
 Harmony will add much to the total output. 
 
 It is in the hope that by interesting the real 
 progressives of both capital and labor we can 
 work out an equitable solution of the many prob- 
 lems, that this little book has been written. 
 And with the motto of the square deal before us, 
 and a true sense of humanity and democracy, 
 we can all do something for the industry and 
 for the country as a whole. 
 
HOME USE 
 
 CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT 
 
 MAIN LIBRARY 
 
 Renewals and "*** made 4 days prior 
 
 is 
 
 LD21 A-40m-5 '74 
 (R8191L) ' 
 
 Uni w"Jof'cJfiSrii!a 
 
 LD 21-95i-7,'37 
 
I? 3 7 
 
 YB 18666 
 
 U.C. BERKELEY LIBRARIES 
 
 C, 
 
 THE'UNIVERSltV OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY